


The Friends of Boyd Crowder

by Anne_Aleus



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4100164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Aleus/pseuds/Anne_Aleus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Raylan tells Boyd that Ava is dead four years later, Boyd decides to find out for himself if his old friend and old enemy is an honest man or a liar. Boyd schemes with the warden and a guard to rob a bank in exchange for his freedom. Boyd is able to set off out of Kentucky in search of former sister-in-law and former lover. Of course, Raylan and the rest of the US Marshals are soon on his trail.  And meanwhile in California, Ava has a feeling something is wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Preacher and Prison Guard Rob a Bank

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. Hope you like this first chapter and want more. 
> 
> The title of this story is taken from 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle', which, as you know, is one of Elmore Leonard's favorite novels and Raylan gave Tim in the final Episode of Justified. 
> 
> I have the whole story planned out. Hopefully I'll be able to write it and finish it soon. I'm probably going to post it to ff.net and tumblr, too. 
> 
> It should be about 80 to 100 pages. This first chapter is about 14.

It was two years into Boyd Crowder’s life sentence at Tramble Maximum Security Prison in Kentucky when a local public radio station did a human interest story on the once white supremacist drug dealer turned born-again prison preacher.

The interview (conducted in a visiting booth with a slab of glass between Boyd and the unlucky radio host who got sent to the prison to talk to the dangerous inmate) was picked up by national public radio, and suddenly Boyd Crowder was more than just the local Harlan outlaw everybody had forgotten about while he was locked away.

He was now a celebrity.

A satellite Christian radio station took interest, asked for recordings of his sermons, and started playing them Sunday nights, late, for whoever was still awake. It was partly because of the novelty of hearing a convicted murderer preaching the word of god as if he had written it himself, and partly because people just liked to listen to that addictive southern drawl oscillate between passionate shouting and equally passionate whispers.

Boyd started receiving love letters to his prison mailbox, after that. He never read them.

The only thing he did do those two years after he became a Christian radio personality was read used books from the prison libraries, give his sermons every Sunday and think about the woman who had shot him in the chest, literally, and in the heart, metaphorically.

Ava Crowder.

And after Raylan Givens had driven all the way from Florida to Kentucky so he could deliver the news of the death of the woman they had both known (but only Boyd had loved), Boyd had returned to his pulpit to only tell his criminal congregation that there would be no more sermons, no more church, and no more prison preacher Boyd Crowder.

Nobody knew why, most assumed he was depressed or that it was just Boyd being Boyd and he would be back to shouting about sins and forgiveness soon. Nobody knew who Boyd’s visitor had been, either.

And nobody really cared. Not even the Christian satellite radio stations who quickly replaced him with a gospel singer from the Detroit ghetto for their god-conquers-crime novelty act.

No, nobody cared until Boyd Crowder disappeared from Tramble a week later.

 

* * *

 

 

It started on a Friday night.

Sumo opened his eyes in the dimly-lit cell to stare up at the ceiling from the top bunk of the cell’s bunkbed. He adjusted his large body on the small mattress, his orange jumpsuit slightly tight for his size.

Why Boyd had let the almost three hundred pound (a mixture of fat and muscles) man sleep above him when the weak frame could break at any moment, causing him to fall down and crush his smaller cellmate.

“You’re doing it again, Boyd.”

A sigh. “Doing what, Sumo?”

“You know what. Turning the pages. It’s keeping me awake.”

Boyd flipped to the next page of the novel he was reading. Its cover was taped-on and torn, but its title was readable.

_The Friends of Eddie Coyle_

Sumo’s black-haired head appeared in Boyd’s peripheral vision, upside-down, narrowing his eyes in annoyance at Boyd from the edge of the top bunk.

Boyd pretended not to notice it and continued reading.

Sumo continued glaring, intent to burn a whole right through the pages of the old book in Boyd’s hands.

Finally, after a few long minutes, Boyd spoke.

“Greatest crime novel ever written.” He declared, “I’d let you borrow it from me if the library wasn’t so strict about its checkout policy.”

“What happened to the bible?” Sumo asked.

“Oh, I still have it under my pillow, Sumo.” Boyd assured, “That one’s mine. You can borrow it anytime the lord compels you to.”

Sumo did not believe in god and Boyd knew that. Boyd also knew that Sumo had only joined his church because was the only asian (Chinese, though, not Japanese like the nickname suggested) in the maximum security section of the prison prison (and perhaps the entire state of Kentucky) and becoming part of the multi-racial Cult of Boyd Crowder was his only protection.

“I want to sleep.” Sumo stated.

“Well, I want to read.” Boyd countered.

He finally looked up at Sumo’s upside-down face. They were at a stalemate until—

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The bootsteps of a guard clacked down the hallway. A random search or roll-call might be upon them.

Boyd sat up from where he lay in the lower bunk, swinging his legs over the side and placing his sock-covered feet onto the floor. He set his book down beside him.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The footsteps drew closer.

Boyd stood up.

He approached the bars of his cell just as the guard passed by.

“Eddy!” Boyd called out to him.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

The blue-uniformed guard with the brown buzzcut and angry blue eyes continued past Boyd.

“Eddy!” Boyd tried again.

Stomp. Stomp. _Sigh._  

The guard swiveled on his feet then returned to the stretch of hallway in front of the cell where Boyd Crowder and Winston ‘Sumo’ Shi spent the majority of their days in an uneasy, unequal truce.

“What is it Crowder?” the guard, Edward Green, groaned, “And why do you think we’re on a first name basis?”

“My apologies…Mr. Green.” Boyd said, sounding sickeningly sincere while quickly checking Edward’s nametag, “I don’t mean to seem too familiar, I just got so caught up in the book I was reading I forgot reality.”

“You do that a lot, don’t you?” Edward sneered.

Boyd smiled. “Fiction is my escapism. Without it—and the grace of god— would go insane locked in here all day and all night like a rat in a cage.”

“I thought you ended the church.” Edward recalled. An old Smashing Pumpkins song got from his high school days stuck in his head at that moment, too.

“I did.” Boyd confirmed, with a nod, then adding, “For now, at least.”

“So what do you want?” Edward asked.

“I want to speak to the warden.” Boyd requested.

“No.” Edward refused, plainly.

“But, Mr. Green, he’s gone like what I have to say and so will you.” Boyd promised.

Edward snorted.

“You know how many of you idiots say stupid stuff like that to me on a daily basis?” he dismissed, “Guards and prisoners both used to tell me you were a legend, you could convince anyone anything—sell their soul or their firstborn son—and they’d do it. Now look at you, Boyd Crowder, a washed up old man…” he chuckled.

“Well, maybe you’re not the kind that’s convinced with words.” Boyd tried, “But instead the kind that’s convinced with money.”

Edward blinked. “You’re trying to bribe me now? Fuck off.”

With that, he turn and stomped away from Boyd the prison cell. In addition to the bootsteps, his laughter was audible.

“Ooh, that was harsh.” Sumo commented, sitting on the top bunk.

Boyd turned around to go back to bed. He noticed the novel he had put down on his mattress was gone.

Furrowing his brow, he checked under the pillow. The bible was gone, too.

“You take my books, Sumo?” Boyd accused, tearing the blanket from his bed to make sure the books had not somehow tucked themselves in under the covers.

Sumo shrugged above. “I ate them.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sumo’s eyes burst open at the clank of the metal celldoor opening. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, Sumo squinted down from the top bunk of the bunkbed.

A figure stomped into the cell and yanked Boyd out of bed, his blankets falling to the floor.

Now, Boyd awoke. “Hey!”

“You’re coming with me.” A voice ordered in the dark.

It was the guard, Edward Green’s.

Sumo watched, silently, as Edward dragged Boyd out of the darkened cell.

 

* * *

 

The warden’s office was smaller than Boyd Crowder had expected. He imagined it should have been grand, with a mahogany desk, a brand new computer, and a wall-sized window overlooking the prison yard when the ants in orange jumpsuits played like bullies on a playground.

Instead, it was like a principal’s office. Painted brickwalls, a few family portraits on the bookshelf, and a scratched-up desk that may have just been laminated to look like wood.

Still, this did not surprise Boyd. It was a state prison, not a for-profit one.

“I didn’t know you worked so late.” He commented as Edward shoved him into the small office, slamming the door behind them.

The warden smiled. “I don’t, usually.” He scoffed, “They don’t pay me enough.”

Boyd smiled back, mimicking the laughter. Instant rapport with the older, white-haired man in the gray suit.

“Boyd Crowder.” Boyd introduced himself, extending a hand to shake.

Edward grimaced when the warden took and shook it.

“James Richland.” Warden returned, then gesturing to the metal foldingchair in front of the scratched desk, “Have a seat. I know who you are, Boyd.”

Boyd released Warden’s hand and sat down in the foldingchair.

“And I know who you are, Mr. Richland.” Boyd replied, “Is this a social visit or did Mr. Green tell you about my offer?”

“I don’t normally socialize with prisoners.” Warden said, “What is your offer, Boyd?”

“I can see from the state of the shower facilities, and of this office, that your prison is having funding troubles, Mr. Richland.” Boyd noted, gesturing at the water-stained ceiling tiles, “I can help with that.”

“How?” Warden inquired, narrowing his eyes in caution and interested.

“By robbing a bank.” Boyd declared.

 

* * *

 

The next morning was a Saturday. 

Boyd sat with Sumo and the other members of his congregation in the beige prison cafeteria.

The table was long, like in that old painting of the Last Supper, but there were a little more than twelve of them. Boyd did sit in the middle like Jesus had, though.

The congregation (eight whites, four blacks, two latinos and an asian) ate their breakfast in wary, mostly-silence. None of them knew what the plan was now that Boyd had disbanded his church after four years.

Were they still a group? Or were they individual targets to be picked off by the Aryan Brotherhood and the Black Guerilla Family?

The men at the other segregated tables stared at Boyd’s integrated table wondering the same thing. But everyone in the room wore orange, except the guards.

For now, they all stayed in their seats.

“You’re not eating, Boyd.” Sumo commented. He eyed Boyd’s plate of intact egg-like substance and stale biscuit. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

He reached across the table towards the meal. A skinny hand swatted his chubby fingers away.

“Ho, there, Sumo! Not fair, not fair at all!” Dickie Bennett declared, “Seeing your size compared to mine, I think I need that food more than you do.”

Boyd looked up from the book he was reading in his lap under the table. Sumo had given the novel back to him that morning from its hiding place. It was still warm.

He faced the messy brown mohawk and overgrown mustache of his former enemy.

“I was gracious enough to forgive your trespasses against people that I care deeply about, one of whom who is dead because of you.” Boyd stated, “I accepted you into my fold, which is more than you deserved—but I will _not_ give you my breakfast, Dickie Bennett.” He turned to Sumo, “Sumo, you can take it.”

Sumo grinned and grabbed the plate, sliding it towards him.

Dickie grumbled to himself next to Sumo. “You fat slant-eyed—“

“Hey!” Boyd warned, “No racism. You know the rules of sitting at my table.”

Dickie rolled his eyes. “You, Boyd, are the one who used to be a Neo Nazi if I recall correctly.”

Boyd sighed at the memory.

Had he ever really believed that crap? Or had he just wanted something to believe in and a reason to be a pack leader? Did he really believe in god?

There was nothing Boyd Crowder knew for certain. Except that he loved Ava—and that when he escaped this prison it would be Raylan Givens that came after him.

Boyd rose, book still in hand.

He walked around the long table and smacked Dickie on the back of the head with the book.

Dickie cried out in pain, then whirled around to glower up at Body. “Ho! Now what in the hell was that for?!”

Boyd raised the book high over his shoulders with both hands, preparing to strike again.

Dickie hopped up and raised his first, preparing to punch Boyd in the face.

Gasps echoed around the wide cafeteria, the eyes of the men in orange and the eyes of the men in blue all watched the two Harlan County natives stare at each other, silent and still.

“Go on, Dickie, hit me.” Boyd invited, “Hit me.”

“Boyd, why?” Dickie asked.

“Hit me.” Boyd growled.

The intense look in his eyes hazel eyes made Dickie fear _not_ hitting him more than he did hitting him.

Nervously, but with full force, Dickie balled his fist and punched Boyd in the jaw. Boyd’s head turned to the side, a few drops of blood and saliva flinging through the air.

Everyone in the cafeteria (except Boyd) gaped in shocked. Even Dickie was shocked at what he had done.

Boyd stood there. He turned his head to face Dickie again, waiting expectantly for Dickie to hit him again.

Dickie shrugged then tackled Boyd to the white tile floor of the cafeteria in a storm of punches.

The inmates erupted into roars, leaping from their seats at the long tables.

The guards shook themselves out of the shock that a once-model inmate would provoke a fight and did their jobs, waving guns and batons around the calm the rowdy crowd.

Sumo stood. “Get off of him—“

“No.” Boyd interrupted, looking up past Dickie as the shorter man punched him on the floor at Sumo, “Let him.”

Sumo sat back down.

Eventually, the guards arrived to pull Dickie off of Boyd and pull Boyd off of the floor. They were in no hurry.

Two guards dragged Dickie, kicking and waving his arms to get free, while just one, Edward Green, took Boyd without protest in the opposite direction, the book still in his hand.

When both involved in the fight were gone from the cafeteria, the inmates returned to their morning meal without further incident.

 

* * *

 

 

Boyd sat on the cold metal table of the white-walled infirmary. He held the novel lightly in both hands.

Edward paced back and forth. He was nervous already.

“We can say your injuries were so bad we had to send you to a real hospital…” he muttered, “but they’re gonna ask questions once they see you were never brought to a hospital or that you escaped from one.”

“Don’t you worry about the authorities.” Boyd calmed, “Worry about how we’re gonna rob this bank. You cased the place like I told you to, right?”

Edward stopped, turning to Boyd. “I did. Three tellers, no security guard, one of them’s gotta gun behind the counter but there’s bulletproof glass in between so I don’t know what he’ll be able to do with it.”

“You don’t know for sure it’s bulletproof glass.” Boyd cautioned. “Don’t let it get to the point he reaches for that gun.”

“I’ll try.” Edward gulped, “You sure this will work, Boyd?”

“Eddy, there are two things I’m good at.” Body declared, “Orating and robbing banks.”

Edward raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you were good at talking?”

Boyd raised an eyebrow right back. “I did. That’s what orating means.”

“…oh.” Edward realized, “I thought it meant—nevermind…”

Boyd slid off the table into a standing position. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

The nondescript van parked the in front of the bank in Eddyville. Nondescript, in this case meant white and windowless so the kind one would imagine a serial killer had and so would immediately be suspicious of.

Inside, Edward turned from the driver’s seat to look back at Boyd.

Boyd was seated on the metal floor, unsecured except for handcuffs, out of sight to anyone that would look in the windows in front of and beside Edward. He had fresh bruises from the rough ride over as well as from the Dickie’s punches.

“You gone let me out of these or am I gonna have to hold the gun like this?” Boyd asked, shaking his connected wrists, the chains jingling.

“I’m not going to give you a gun.” Edward snorted, “I’m not stupid.”

His rifle sat in the passenger’s seat next to him. Even it had been buckled in.

Boyd grimaced. “You’ll let me out of these, though?”

Edward nodded. “Hold on.”

Boyd waited as Edward unbuckled himself, then his gun, then exited the van. He walked across the sidewalk to the other end of the van, then stepped onto the street in order to open its back door.

Boyd squinted in the sunlight when the door slid open. He outstretched both hands so that Edward could unlock the handcuffs.

“You know, Mr. Green, there happens to be an Eddie in the book I’m reading.” He conversed as Edward, dug for the key in his jeans pocket.

He was wearing civilian attire, jeans and a white t-shirt. Boyd was given the clothes taken from him upon arrival in prison; a white buttondown, dark jeans and a black coat.

“I hate that nickname.” Edward dismissed. He had found the key.

“A couple bankrobbers, too.” Boyd continued, “And a cop trying to catch them. It’s one of those things you just know is going to end badly, but you can’t bear to take your eyes off the page.”

“Is this a book club or a bank robbery?” Edward snapped.

He grabbed Boyd’s wrists and shoved the key into the lock. As soon as he turned it, Boyd shook his hands free, from the cuffs and Edward’s grasp, letting the metal falls.

“Free at last!” Boyd declared, “Thank god almighty, I am—“

“Shut up and put those on.” Edward ordered. “Hand me mine.”

He pointed behind Boyd. There were two skimasks and two pairs of gloves in a black cloth pile.

Boyd reached behind him with his newly freed hand and slid the pile forward across the metal floor. He picked up one glove, slipped it on, then another, slipped it on.

Finally, he picked up the black skimask with both hands and pulled it over his tall brown hair and angular face. Now, only his hazel eyes were visible.

“Let’s do this, Eddy.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Now, normally I like to cause a distraction before I rob a bank.” Boyd told Edward, “But since I don’t have any emulex today, I’ll have to improvise.”

They marched through the glass doors into the local branch of a chain bank. Boyd scanned the off-white colored room while Edward shot at the ceiling.

“Everybody down this is a robbery!” he shouted.

Shrieks. Gasps. The usual.

Boyd watched as the businesspeople and stay-at-home parents dropped to the blue carpet. They gazed up at the robbers in disbelief and fear.

Who actually expects a robbery when cashing paycheck at the bank?

The closest person to Boyd’s black shoes was an elderly woman crouched on the floor behind a navyblue couch. She hoped he had not seen her, but he had. She had her large cellphone out, the kind with the bigger screen and buttons built for a senior citizen’s ease-of-use and eyesight.  

Boyd squatted down to her level. “Excuse me, ma’am, may I borrow your phone?”

The woman stared into his ski masked face, her glasses-covered eyes wide. It took a few moments before she moved, arm shaking as she handed him the phone.

“Thank you.” Boyd thanked.

She could see his smile though the cut out in the mask for his mouth, large and almost shark-like

He then rose, taller than everyone in the room because he and Edward were the only ones standing. He glanced at the phone’s screen, then dialed three numbers.

9-1-1

Over by the wooden tellerbooths, the most fearful of the three tellers was shoving stacks of money through the tiny rectangular hole in the glass to Edward’s bag, held open so that the cash would fall in.

Meanwhile Edward trained his gun and his eyes on the man who had survived previous robberies and could stop this one were he able to reach for his shotgun under his desk. He was not. Both his hands were raised in surrender above him.

(Of course, this meant that Edward was not watching the fearful teller.)

The phone rang in Boyd’s hand. He pressed it to his ear.

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.

“Hello, my name is Sadam Osama, I’m an illegal Muslim immigrant from Nigeria and I’m going to blow up the closest elementary school unless the president closes Guantanamo Bay and releases all the prisoners.” Boyd declared. “Thank you.”

He hung up the phone and dropped it onto the carpet beside the old woman it belonged to.

The sirens could already be heard somewhere in the distance—probably hurrying in the direction of the nearest school.

Boyd turned to Edward.

“Distraction achieved.” He informed.

“I’ve got the money.” Edward replied, without glancing back at Boyd. Bag of cash in one hand, he backed away from the counter, continuing to the point his rifle at the teller with both hands raised in the air.

Boyd turned and exited the bank, while Edward had backed his way out of the building with the bag of money.

 

* * *

 

 

Boyd was already sitting in the back of the white van, skimask removed, when Edward slid open the back door to throw in the stolen cash.

“You know Guantanamo Bay closed already, right?” he asked the prisoner, tugging off his own mask and gloves.

“Just because I’ve been in prison for the past five years don’t mean I don’t keep up-to-date on current events.” Boyd responded, “I also know we had a presidential election three years ago—though, being a felon, I was not allowed to vote.”

“Rand Paul wouldn’t have won anyway.” Edward dismissed.

“Do you take me for a libertarian, Mr. Green?” Boyd asked.

“Well, I know you wouldn’t have voted for Bernie Sanders.” Edward reasoned, “You were too un politically correct with that distraction phone call you made.”

Boyd shrugged, “Nothing will make law enforcement move faster than a black, Muslim illegal alien.”

“We need to move fast.” Edward stated, “Somebody in there would’ve called the police by now and that old teller might come out with his shotgun.”

“This is where you and I part ways, Mr. Green.” Boyd declared. “Now give me my share of the money and I will be on my way. You’ll travel lighter and faster without me and my half weighing down the back of your van.”

“Oh, no, no, _‘Mr’_. Crowder.” Edward countered, “I’m taking _you_ back to prison. The deal I made with the warden was that I get half, he get half and you get nothing but the room, board and free meals provided by the government to you in the Kentucky State Penitentiary.”

 Boyd sighed. He had suspected this would happen.

“Eddy, I do hope you’re joking.” He said, “Because I can appreciate a man with a sense of humor—even if his timing and his delivery leave something to be desired. What I can _not_ appreciate, however, is betrayal. You’re not the first fool who tried to doublecross me after a robbery.”

“I didn’t give you a gun for a reason.” Edward reminded. “What are you gonna do to stop me?”

“The book I’m reading…” Boyd mused, reaching behind him to pick it up with one hand, “I forgot to mention that I’d read it already. Several times. It came out the year I was born and was a favorite of a friend of mine back in high school.”

Edward groaned, “Not this book stuff again.”

“Now, normally I’d never spoil the ending of a good book.” Boyd continued, “But ‘cause you’re not gone have a chance to read it for yourself, I guess I can make an exception.”

“What?” Edward demanded, raising his rifle.

But before he could aim the weapon at Boyd and shoot, Boyd pulled a shiv from the book, lunged forward and stabbed Edward in the neck.

Edward choke. He dropped the gun to grab his open and bleeding throat. His eyes, wide, gaped at Boyd. He tried to speak but only gurgling noises sputtered out with the blood and saliva.

He fell backwards, down onto the gray asphalt street behind him.

Boyd stepped out of the back of the van to stand over Edward who glared up at him, shock turning to anger, then the realization that he was about to die.

Boyd chuckled, shaking his head and watching Edwards’s blood spill from his neck to pool on the pavement around his body, soaking into his white t-shirt. The shiv still stuck out of his throat, but it did not stop the bleeding.

Boyd bent down beside Edward to whisper, “The man named Eddie? He dies.”

Then, he picked up the rifle, stood, and was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

It was dark in California, especially in the small town of Lebec where the city light-pollution could not taint the dark, starry skies, and especially on the ranch Ava Crowder—now Jacklyn ‘Jackie’ Leonard—lived and worked, caring for the property and the special needs children that the owner ran a school for.

Now, she sat in the lamplight of her livingroom, her almost-five year old son on her lap, in the red armchair by the wooden coffeetable. On top of it sat a tablet, tuned into a particular satellite radio station.

Right now, Christian rock music was humming. Not exactly Ava’s favorite genre, but her son, Zachariah Leonard, seemed to enjoy it.

“Mama, when’s the shouting man gonna come on?” he asked her.

He looked up at her with her own green eyes that sometimes, in the bright sunlight, looked like Boyd’s hazel. He had Boyd’s brown hair, too, though it did not stand straight up like cornstalks like Boyd’s did, and he had his soft cotton pajama shirt button-up to his neck, the way only Boyd, and now his son, would find comfortable.

Ava was in her nightgown, past knee-length and thick, because she lived with her young child and not a grown man. She had slippers on her feet.

“In a few minutes.” Ava promised.

But she should not have. Instead of the famous (infamous?) prison preacher from Tramble State in Kentucky, the _un_ southern accent of an announcer broadcast instead.

“Listeners, unfortunately we will not have the Prison Preacher Radio Hour on the air tonight. Prison warden James Richland has informed us that his inmate Boyd Crowder is unavailable at the moment. Hopefully this will be resolved by next Sunday. For now, enjoy some of your favorite gospel—“

Ava reached past Zach and tapped the tablet off. Zach folded his arms and glared up at his mother.

“You said—“ he began.

“Well, I didn’t know, Zach and I’m sorry.” Ava replied. “I guess I’m going to have to read you a story instead.” She smiled, trying to coax Zach out of his pout. “Now, which one do you want to read with me?”

She was careful to speak in complete sentences and correct grammar around her son. She did not want him to grow up talking like a ‘hillbilly’.

He had learned to talk early, so she had had to stop cursing, and had learned to read at three years old by memorizing every line then matching the sound to the word on the page. It was just picture books now, but chapter books would come soon.

“I don’t wanna read with you, I wanna listen to the shouting man.” Zach insisted.

“You heard the announcer.” Ava shrugged, long blonde hair shaking with her shoulders,  “He’s not available tonight.”

She wondered what had happened to Boyd.

Had he been beaten? Killed? Broken out?

She tried to guess which one, and which one she would have preferred to have happened. Three years ago, it would have been killed. A year ago, beaten.

But time had worn away her hatred for Boyd while leaving her love for him untouched. And, there was the love for her son, too, the strongest feeling she had ever felt. She could not help but see Boyd’s face when looking at her little boy.

“Why?” her little boy demanded.

“I don’t know.” Ava admitted.

Zach hopped off his mother’s lap, jumping onto the surface of the coffeetable where he crouched, picking up the tablet. He pressed the touchscreen, turning the satellite station back on.

A man’s voice bellowed an old spiritual Ava recognized from Sundays in Nobles Holler when she had been hiding out from Bowman. She stood outside the small wooden church, not wanting to step into a sacred and safe place.

Just like the holler was a refuge for Ava, and other white women, from their abusive husbands, the church a refuge for the black citizens of Harlan County from the white ones who would rather see them hang from trees than live quiet, unbothered lives tucked away in the valley of the mountains.

Ava did not want to disturb that.

A sly friend of Ellston Limehouse who also did not step inside the church saw Ava idling outside one morning, listening to the singing sail out the glass-less window of the airconditioning-less building.

He had offered to have the preacher baptize her in the nearby river. Ava knew his offer had less to do with god and more to do with seeing her in a wet t-shirt.

Limehouse had scolded his friend for that.

The music stopped.

Ava glanced up from her memory to see that Zach had tapped the tablet again. He liked Christian rock, but not gospel, apparently. She was still trying to get him to appreciate bluegrass, too.

“Why’d the shouting man go to prison?” Zach asked. “That’s where the bad people go.”

“I don’t know why.” Ava lied, “But I guess it was because he was a bad man.”

“But he’s a preacher.” Zach reasoned, furrowing his small forehead.

“Maybe, he’s not a bad man anymore.” Ava hoped (though completely doubted), “Maybe he turned good.”

“If he turned good, why didn’t they let him out?” Zach wondered.

He was now sitting on the coffeetable with his little legs swinging back and forth, too short to touch the brown-carpeted floors beneath them with his sockfeet.

“Because he might turn bad again.” Ava answered.

Zach’s legs stopped swinging. He cocked his head to one side in confusion.

“Will I turn bad, mama?” he inquired, “Will you?”

“No.” Ava stated, with certainty. She was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to assure him. “As long as you make the right choices, and do the right things, like I’m teaching you, then you’ll never turn bad.”

“Why does anyone turn bad?” Zach followed-up.

“I don’t know, honey,” Ava sighed. She reached forward with both arms and pulled Zach off of the coffeetable and back onto her lap. “And I think, sometimes, the bad people don’t know either.”


	2. California Roadtrip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. Second chapter. Hope you like it. 
> 
> Third one is also about to be posted, I've written it, too. 
> 
> Dickie out of the wheelchair? Well, let's just say he got better and got out of it during the four years. Dickie no longer crazy? Let's just say he was faking it anyway. 
> 
> It is fanfiction after all.

It was Saturday evening by the time Boyd ditched the suspicious looking white van at a rest stop about fifty miles from Eddyville.

Tractortrailer trucks lined up at the curb, and for the gas station to be pumped full of diesel. Travelers milled back and forth between their vehicles in the parkinglot and the fastfood restaurants inside the long building.

It was not very crowded inside the building, which resembled a mall cafeteria in both sight and smell. The stench of grease, gas, and sickly sweet garbage hung in the air like moisture on a humid day.

Boyd breathed it in like it was a field of fresh flowers or Ava’s perfume.

He was free.

He scanned the cafeteria.

Plastic tables and chairs, trash and crumbs atop them and on the tile floor. A McDonalds, a Kentucky Fried Chicken (Boyd had always chuckled at the name), a Dairy Queen, and a Subway (for people who liked to pretend they were healthy).

Boyd knew cameras were recording him and the people inside had seen his face, even if only for a few brief moments. He had to be quick.

Boyd pulled a twenty dollar bill from the pocket of his dark jeans. It was stained pink. A dyepack had exploded in the bag of money.

That was what Boyd got for working with an amateur.

He hoped the cashier at the KFC liked the color.

* * *

 

After collecting his change and his drumsticks, Boyd stood holding a box of chicken in one hand and one of the payphones in the world in his other hand.

“Hello, my name is Raylan Givens.” Boyd told the operator at the creditcard company. “I’m calling about some unauthorized charges on my creditcard, I believe they were out of state…”

* * *

 

After getting back to his tractortrailer after eating his sub (salami and swiss cheese) truck driver Joe was shocked to find a strange, skinny man sitting in the passengerseat holding a box of fried chicken on his lap.

“Good afternoon.” The man greeted, with a calm smile, “You wouldn’t happen to be going to California, now would you?”

Joe tensed, furrowing his sunburned forehead and grimacing behind his chest-length beard.

He recognized that voice.

It was that prison preacher from the Christian radio he listened to when he was driving late Sunday nights so he would not feel bad for missing church and having a two kids out of wedlock with two different women. It made him feel better about himself. At least he was not a bank robbing, drug dealing white supremacist murderer like…

What was his name again? Roy Chowder?

Boyd Crowder.

All the southern accents sounded the same to Joe but Joe knew this voice. It was him. Had to be.

This was prison preacher Boyd Crowder expect he was somehow out of prison and certainly was not preaching at the moment.

“Sorry, man, Nevada.” Joe refused, “And I don’t pick up hitchhikers, anyway. Unless they’re pretty girls.”

Body’s eyebrows rose in surprise at Joe’s accent. It was a northern accent, Boston or New York, he could not tell. The Georgia licenseplate of the truck indicated neither.

Still, Boyd smiled. He lifted the rifle he had hidden with his long legs, casually, not even pointing it at Joe.

“I think I’m a very pretty girl if I do say so myself.” He stated, “So what do you say, Yankee, are we going to California?”

* * *

 

The couple, two ranches over from the caretaker’s cabin Ava and her son Zach lived in, consisted of Rosa, streaks of silver in her long black hair, and Luis, who tended more to his mustache than the bald spot on the top of his otherwise black-haired head.

They had never been able to have children on their own. Rosa, who had a beautiful voice, was the music teacher at the special needs program run by the owner of the ranch Ava worked and lived on. Luis was the gardener and groundskeeper.

Ava and Zach waited on the wooden front porch. They could see Luis’ red truck rumbling up the dirt road. Zach, whose eyesight was better than his mother’s, could see Luis driving and Rosa beside him.

Before Ava could pull him back, he darted off the porch and took off running down the hill to meet the truck. Ava shook her head and hurried after him.

The grass was green and the sky was blue. It was a warm, gorgeous California day.

When Ava caught up to Zach, the truck had stopped and Rosa had stepped out while Luis kept a hand on the wheel but smiled out the window.

Rosa lifted Zach into the air with both arms, then pulled him close into a hug, saying something in Spanish that Ava did not understand. Zach was starting to learn the language, though.

Ava smiled as she jogged up. She was glad Zach had Rosa and Luis to love him, since he did not have his father, aunts and uncles, and grandparents around.

Rosa set Zach down when she saw Ava, so that she could wave at her.

“I told him he’s getting so big.” She said, “Look at him. He’ll be as tall as I am soon.”

She was only a little over five feet tall, so she was right. With a father that was almost six feet, Zach would probably be Rosa’s height by middle school.

Ava laughed, “Hopefully not too soon. I’m enjoying him now while he’s young. He’ll be chasing girls soon, won’t have time for his momma.” 

“Girls will be chasing _him.”_ Rosa corrected, ruffling Zach’s brown hair with five fingers, “He’s already so handsome.”

“Girls?” Zach repeated, grimacing, “Ew.”

Ava, Rosa and Luis all snorted at the comment.

“Keep thinking that as long as you want, honey.” Ava told him.

“Not you, though, mom.” Zach specified. “You’re okay. Y usted, tambien, Rosa.”

Zach called Ava ‘mom’ instead of ‘momma’ like the other kids at his preschool called their mothers, and he did not have the Kentucky drawl she did. Still, she loved the sound of his voice no matter what he said and what his accent was.

He scurried back over to her to hug her around her legs.

She was wearing a green sundress that matched the color of her eyes and kittenheeled sandals that were not meant for this dusty dirt road. She looked tasteful, like a mother should, but still beautiful, with her long blonde hair wavy and hanging past her shoulders.

Zach was dressed up, too. She always him in a cute little button down and khakis when he was going to visit Rosa and Luis. Sometimes, if it was on a Saturday night, they would take him to church the next morning on Sunday.

Today, though, it was Monday afternoon.

“Normally, I’d never do this on a Monday so thank you for taking him overnight.” Ava thanked. “It’s just something came up—“

“We love having him over.” Rosa assured, “Don’t worry about it.”

Ava nodded, “Thank you.”

She smiled as Zach waved goodbye, took Rosa’s hand and walked to the red truck where Luis was waiting. She kept smiling as the three drove off and the truck disappeared back down the dirt road it had come.

When she was alone, Ava’s smile fell.

She had dressed up like she was going on a date, but she did not have one. She had something else she needed to do.

* * *

 

Joe wiped the sweat off his sunburned forehead with one hand while the other stayed steady on the steeringwheel of his tractortrailer. He was driving fast, over the speed limit but not so over that it would attract police attention.

The other cars just avoided the giant trailer. The highway ahead was clear.

On the horizon, the last purple glimpses of Saturday’s setting sun. They were driving west.

The sky above was dark and starful, and it was dark inside the cabin of the tractortrailer as well.

Joe kept his eyes on the horizon, staring straight ahead. Still, he watched Boyd Crowder in his peripheral vision.

The man just sat there, staring at the horizon too (probably watching Joe in his peripheral vision) and tapping the rifle, laying there against the seat and his body like it was a third leg. He had not touched the box of chicken in his lap.

The smell made Joe hungry, even though he had already eaten and was trying to lose weight. The meat must have been getting cold…

“You gonna kill me when we get to California?” Joe finally asked.

“Are you gone report me to the police if I don’t?” Boyd returned. His hazel eyes still watched the window ahead.

“No.” Joe promised.

Boyd chuckled, “They always say that…you know I had one guy, once about four years ago, try to butter me up with praises, saying he knew who I was—a dangerous outlaw and hero to the commonfolk—and he would sing my song if I let him live.”

“What’d you do?” Joe inquired.

Boyd shook his head, down at his lap instead of at the window. It was getting dark outside and he was beginning to see his reflection.

“Something I’m not proud of.” He admitted, “It was…a dark time in my life.”

His fiancée had been informing on him not only to the Marshals, but to his former friend.

“Is it still a dark time?” Joe checked. Whether it was or it was not, might determine whether he would live.

“I’m not sure yet…” Boyd said. He looked back up at the window in front of him, with some hope in his hopeless eyes.

The setting sun was completely gone now. But there were stars.

* * *

 

Hours later, Joe was struggling to keep his eyes from closing and understand how Body Crowder was still wide awake and focused after so long. Did the man ever sleep?

They were in Oklahoma, now, almost halfway to California.

Boyd’s eyes were fixed on the empty freeway ahead of them. It was past midnight, early Sunday morning.

“I’m tired…” Joe complained, “I’ll crash and we’ll both die if you make me keep driving like this.”

“I told you we can stop in a drivethrough for coffee whenever you want.” Boyd allowed.

“A truck this size can’t go through a drivethrough.” Joe reasoned.

“Well you’re gone have to keep your eyes open a little longer then, Yankee.” Boyd responded.

Joe sighed.

“What’s in California?” he asked, “The border? You trying to get out of the country or something?”

Boyd shook his head, “No, I’m just going for the beautiful view.”

“So there’s a woman.” Joe guessed.

Actually, he knew.

Boyd had spoken about Ava Crowder before, on the Prison Preacher Radio Hour.

It was a sermon about lust. How it was wrong to covet thy neighbor’s—or in Boyd’s case, _brother’s_ —wife…but it was mandated by the Bible that a man care for his brother’s wife in all ways after his brother’s death.

Ava had apparently killed her husband, Boyd’s brother. Boyd had also given a sermon against spousal abuse.

“I’m sure there are many women in California.” Boyd shrugged.

“Yeah, but there’s always a special one.” Joe expressed, “I mean, my wife’s getting older, just like I am, but no matter how many young things I look at, I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman than her.”

Boyd rolled his hazel eyes. “You’re not married, Yankee.”

He gestured to Joe’s hands on the steeringwheel. There were no rings on any of his ten fingers.

“…not _legally.”_ Joe attempted, “But we’ve got a common law thing.”

“They have that in New York where you’re from?” Boyd checked.

“Boston.” Joe corrected, “Yeah, they do.”

He had no idea if there was common law in Massachusetts or not. He hoped Boyd did not either.

“Boston…” Boyd mused, “The city that started the war to free this great nation from the tyranny of taxation.”

“Yeah.” Joe agreed, wondering what point Boyd was trying to make—if he was trying to make a point at all—“My daughter’s learning about that in history class about now, I think. Fourth grade.”

Boyd chuckled.

“You trying to make me sympathetic so I don’t kill you?” he figured.

Joe’s already red from sunburn face redden. Boyd was too smart for a truck driver with a GED to fool.

“Just establish a rapport so you won’t want to.” He tried. “You have any kids?”

“Yankee, the less you know about me, the safer you are.” Boyd dismissed.

“So you might let me live?” Joe hoped.

“I’m not sure I trust you yet.” Boyd replied.

He finally looked at Joe seated next to him. Joe did not look back.

“Are you a Christian?” Joe asked.

He knew the answer. Well, sort of, anyway. Boyd Crowder was a preacher, but that did not make him a Christian.

“As many people have been killed in the name of Christ as they have been saved, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Boyd said, “You’re not any safer with a religious man pointing a gun at you than with a nonbeliever doing the same thing.”

Joe sighed. “I’m so tired from all this driving I almost don’t care if you kill me. I might die of exhaustion anyway…”

His eyelids and his head drooped. Both hands loosened on the steeringwheel.

The tractortrailer began to swerve.

_Honk!_

The SVU driving beside them beeped as it speed up to avoid being sideswiped by the tractortrailer.

Boyd leaned over and grabbed the steeringwheel, jerking it the other direction so that the trailer would return to its original lane on the freeway.

Suddenly Joe was wide awake again. He grabbed for the gun held by Boyd’s legs.

 Boyd let go of the wheel to go for the gun himself, too.

“I thought you wanted to live, Yankee!” he shouted, “Now you’re acting like you wanna die!”

“You were gonna kill me anyway!” Joe yelled, “At least this way if I die, I die fighting.”

Four hands fought for the rifle in the legspace under the passengerseat.

The box of chicken on Boyd’s lap slid off his legs, landing on the floor of the truck and bursting open to release chicken legs in all directions.

Uncontrolled, the steeringwheel turned the trailer again, this time in the opposite direction towards the metal railing and the ditch by the side of the road.

The rifle went off.

A bullet whizzed upwards past Boyd and Joe’s face, shooting straight through the ceiling. Their ears rung and stung with the sound and volume.

The tractortrailer tipped over.

* * *

 

The First Bank of Lebec was the small, but nice and neatly furnished kind of bank that Boyd Crowder would have robbed had it been in Kentucky.

Ava was not walking through its front doors, across the blue carpet, up to the teller behind the wooden counter and clear glass to rob it, though. She was just here to cash out her entire account.

“You know, Ms. Leonard, we have to report it to the authorities when customers take out such a large amount of money.” The teller in the blue uniform warned Ava, “It’s standard procedure.”

“That’s fine.” Ava allowed.

“Can I ask if everything’s okay?” he followed up, concern in his voice and brown eyes.

He was a good looking guy, but at least fifteen years younger than Ava was and still called her ‘Ms. Leonard’ instead of ‘Jackie’. She had laughed it off every time he had flirted with her (though still enjoyed the compliments).

“Everything’s fine.” Ava smiled. “I’m just moving out of town and I don’t think there’ll be a First Bank of Lebec there, so…”

“You’re moving? Really?” Teller gasped, surprised and disappointed. “We’ll miss you here, and all the kids at the school will cry.”

Ava forced a laugh, “I’ll miss ya’ll, too, and the kids.”

“We can wire the money to another bank, you know.” Teller reminded.

“I know.” Ava said, “It’s fine. I’ll just take the cash.”

The truth was, she did not know where she and Zach were going (or what their new names were going to be), so had no bank picked out to wire it to.

“You sure?” Teller checked, “I don’t think it’s safe for a woman and a little kid alone to carry all that cash.”

“We’ll be fine.” Ava dismissed, still smiling.

“I can help you move, if you want.” Teller offered. “Carry the heavy furniture. Protect you from any robbers—“

“I’ve got my shotgun.” Ava interrupted to say. It was half way between an assurance and a warning.

“Okay, then.” Teller accepted, in defeat, “I’ll get you your cash. I’ll be right back, there’s not enough in the drawers.”

Ava nodded and smiled until Teller had turned his back to her and walked into the back room to retrieve her money. She watched him go, waiting with her arms folded.

The door swung open behind her.

Ava jolted and glanced back with wide green eyes to see who it was.

Boyd? Raylan? The authorities here to arrest her?

A gray-haired old man hobbled in on a walker.

Ava sighed in relief, chuckling at her own fear. Then she turned and rushed over to help him through the heavy door.

 

* * *

 

When Joe the truck driver woke up, still belted into the front seat of his tipped over tractortrailer, his head was pounding. Even with his vision blurry he could see the flashing red and blue of police lights.

A man in uniform was approaching the trailer, visible through the cracked front window. There was an ambulance parked in front of the overturned vehicle, too.

Struggling to move his neck, Joe turned his head to the passenger side.

Boyd Crowder and the rifle were gone.

He had let Joe live after all.

Joe smile as he slipped back into unconsciousness.

* * *

 

That night—or that morning, really, it was already three AM on Sunday—Boyd slept inside a grimy motelroom in Oklahoma. The motel owner did not mind Boyd waking him up so late and Boyd’s pink-stained bills when Boyd paid two hundred dollars for a sixty dollar a night room.

Before he turned off the lamp on the nightstand, though, Boyd opened its top drawer.

Inside was a black bible.

Boyd thought about pulling it out and reading it. He was a Christian, after all, and a preacher.

But he was too tired now.

Instead set down the book he had brought with him from the prison, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, next to the bible, closed the drawer and fell asleep.

The lamp was still on.

 

* * *

 

The amount that Boyd bought beat up old truck for from the skinny, weathered woman was enough to feed her family for a few months, at least. Instead, the almost-toothless prostitute who worked out of the motel and looked decades older due to meth use would likely spend it all on drugs and his children would go hungry.

Boyd did not care. He had given up trying to save people, even himself.

It was midday Sunday and he drove in the direction of California. The truck smelled like cigarette smoke and bad breath.

Boyd rolled down both windows—manually because the vehicle was too cheap for electronic buttons.

It did have a radio, though.

Boyd pushed the button to turn it on with the hand not on the steeringwheel.

_I got everything I need, nothing that I don’t_

Boyd twisted the button to change the station. He hated that song.

The guards always played the newest country music in the prison yard. It was really to piss the black inmates off who preferred rap, but after hours of the same forty songs, Boyd would have preferred rap, too.

The news channel buzzed on.

_A tractortrailer overturned on the I-40 West early this morning. The driver was found unconscious and is receiving treatment for injuries at the local hospital. He has yet to wake up._

Boyd wondered if that truck driver would tell anybody about being carjacked and kidnaped if he woke up. Probably would.

Boyd had pointed the rifle at the sleeping man and caressed the trigger, but then he had lowered it and walked away down the side of the highway until he had found a motel.

At the time, head aching and dizzy, Boyd had convinced himself the truck driver was already dead and a bullet should not be wasted on an already dead body. But lucid the next morning, Boyd knew he had just not felt like killing two men in one day.

_In other news, convicted murderer Boyd Crowder escaped a Kentucky prison yesterday after killing a guard in a botched bank robbery. Crowder gained marginal fame in the US and internationally for his Sunday night radio show the Prison Preacher Radio Hour where in his weekly sermons he claimed to have found god and given up crime._

Boyd groaned.

It had only been one day and his escape was national news? Great…

Now Raylan would hear about it and come after him. And Raylan knew where Ava was and had the ability to get to her faster than he did.

Boyd pressed his foot harder onto the acceleration pedal.

 

* * *

 

Van Higgins scratched his brown hair, messing up the short ponytail it was pulled back into at the base of his neck. He had dressed up in his Sunday best today even though it was Monday to surprise his girlfriend for a date (and maybe, finally meet her the son she had been hiding from him the past sixth months, too). 

He was already regretting the ponytail and the black suit, as the heat of the summer sun on his farmer’s tanned skin. He was more comfortable in blue jeans and a t-shirt or tanktop, with his ear-length hair out, and had never held a job in his forty years that required more than that.

The reason he was scratching his head, however, was not the heat.

It was the confusing sight he saw before him. Jackie Leonard packing the contents of the cabin where she lived with her son into cardboard boxes.

From the bottom of her front porch Van called to her as he strode out her front door, propped open by a heavy rock found in the backyard.

Ava, startled by the unexpected voice of the unexpected visitor, almost dropped the cardboard box she was carrying. Van leaped up the steps to catch it while it was still in her hands.

They stared at each other, the box between them.

“You’re leaving?” Van asked.

Ava grimaced in embarrassment, “Yeah, uh, going back home to be with family.”

“You told me you didn’t have any family.” Van reminded.

“I also told you not to come over here.” Ava returned, “I don’t let my son meet the guys I date unless I plan to marry them. I don’t plan on marrying you, so—“

“Is he here?” Van checked.

His brown eyes glanced around, past Ava through the front door into her home, then behind him back into the front yard where he had parked his strangely expensive car for a horse trainer.

“No.” Ava admitted. “And neither will, soon enough.”

She pushed past Van to hurry down the porch steps and across the yard to her truck. Van jogged after her.

“Let me carry it.” He requested, reaching for the box, “It’s the least I can do. And the least you can do is tell me why you’re leaving.”

Ava clutched the box tight the rest of the way to the truck. She slammed it down, probably too hard, into the open back of the truck.

“Because I have to.” She stated, ambiguous and bitter. She did not want to leave.

“This about your ex?” Van inquired, raising a brown eyebrow. “Zach’s father?”

He did not know about Boyd. Ava had told him she was hiding from Bowman, her abusive ex-husband, who she had named ‘Bob’.

Ava nodded without turning to face Van. She stared down at the box she had put down into the back of the truck.

There were tears trying to escape her bottom eyelids. She would not let them.

Ava did not want to leave Lebec. She and her son had the perfect life here.

She had a job and friends from work, he had friends at school, and she was even getting to the point where she wanted to introduce him to her horse trainer boyfriend, Van.

But after the Prison Preacher Radio had suddenly stopped broadcasting, Ava had checked the Kentucky news online. Sure enough, Boyd Crowder had escaped prison.

And so now Ava and Zach had to leave Lebec and their perfect life here behind.

She had almost forgiven Boyd, but now she hated him again.

Ava felt a comforting hand on her back.

“Hey, hey, look at me, Jackie.” Van said. Then, gentle and slow, because he knew she had been handled roughly by a man, he spun Ava around to face him.

Ava looked up at him, green eyes into brown. She squinted to keep her tears from rolling down her cheeks. “What?”

“I can protect you.” He promised, “Stay here. Let Bob come. I’ll kill him if he even looks at you.”

Ava’s eyes widened in hope, but then she shook her head. Her long blonde hair shook, too.  

 _Bowman,_ Van might have been able to protect her from with the handgun he kept in the glovecompartment of his fancy car. But _Boyd?_

No, if Boyd ever saw Van with her, Van would not even be able to protect himself.

Ava liked Van too much to let that happen. (Maybe even loved him, a little.)

She had to leave with Zach and leave Van behind.

“I can’t get you involved with this.” Ava refused, “It’s best I just take my son and go.”

 “But, Jackie—“Van tried.

“I’m sorry, Van.” Ava apologized.

She kissed him on the cheek but then pushed him away.

Just as she was starting back up the grassy hill to her small house, she and Van both heard the rumbling of another vehicle approaching on the dirt road.

Ava turned back around, moving to stand at Van’s side. The watched as the beat up old car got closer.

Ava narrowed her eyes, but still could not see any more than the silhouette of its driver. Her eyesight got worse every year but she did not have the medical records to visit an eye doctor for glasses.

She and Van waited, silent and tense for the old car to stop. Finally it did.

A familiar form opened the door and got out, shutting it with a bang that echoed around the large ranch valley. He held a rifle in one hand and while the other hung at his side.

“Hello, Ava.” Boyd greeted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be up, soon if not now.
> 
> Let me know if you liked this one.


	3. Boyd and Ava

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this one as well.

“Remind me again why the Marshals are interested in a local bank robbery?”

Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson was on the phone with his boss Chief Deputy Art Mullen while he stepped out of his black van in front of the recently robbed bank in Eddyville.

“Because the deceased robber was a guard at Tramble prison.” Art’s voice explained on speakerphone from his office. “And you know robs banks _and_ went missing from Tramble today?”

“Boyd Crowder.” Tim completed.

“Exactly.” Art agreed, “And since he’s escaped from prison, that makes him a fugitive, which makes it the Marshal’s problem.”

“Alright.” Tim accepted, “I’ll call you back if I find out anything.”

He hung up the cellphone and returned it to his jeans pocket.

Ahead of him was the bank, blocked off by police tape. On the gray pavement of the street there was a chalk outline of a where the body of the dead prison guard had been.

Tim strode forward and pulled open the glass door to the bank.

Instead police officers in uniform took statements from the civilians who had witnessed the robbery, including the three tellers.

“I put a dyepack in the bag.” The younger, female teller told a tall officer scribbling onto a clipboard.

Tim bypassed her and the tall officer, standing near the door, to approach an old woman sitting on a navyblue couch, holding her large cellphone and staring at it through her glasses worriedly.

“Excuse me ma’am.” Tim greeted.

The old woman looked up at him. “I already gave my statement. I’m just waiting for my son to pick me up. I’m too jittery to drive right now.”

She held out both of her arms. They shook as if she had Parkinson’s disease.

“Well, while you’re waiting, can you tell me what happened?” Tim requested.

The old woman lowered her arms.

“He took my phone.” She recounted, “Called the police and told them he was Barack Obama, straight out of Kenya, and that he was going to blow up a school if the president didn’t free all the prisoners from Riker’s Island.”

Tim furrowed his forehead in confusion. “What did he look like?”

“He wore a skimask and gloves.” The old woman said, “I don’t know what he looked like—my eyesight isn’t that good anyway, even with my glasses.” She adjusted the frames on her face with one wrinkled hand.

“What did his voice sound like?” Tim tried.

“Like most every man around here.” The old woman replied, “But maybe…a bit like that preacher on the radio? The one from the prison. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? No wonder he wanted everyone at Riker’s Island set free. They’re locked up like he was.”

“…okay.” Tim accepted.

Prison preacher?

So it was indeed Boyd Crowder who had robbed this bank.

…but where was he now?

* * *

 

“Hello, Ava.” Boyd greeted.

Ava gasped and gaped.

It was Boyd. Boyd Crowder. Her ex-fiancé, ex-brother-in-law.

How had he found her? How had he gotten here so quickly?

Boyd looked exactly the same as the last time Ava had seen him, in the barn where he had shot at her with an empty gun and then threatened to kill her as soon as he got out of prison. (Probably because he was wearing the same clothes, white buttondown, black suit.) His hazel eyes were wide and his brown hair stuck straight up.

Tense and motionless in fear, Ava finally forced herself to turn to Van.

“Van, you need to leave.” She said, _“Now.”_

Van looked at her, furrowing his brow, “What? Why?”

Ava returned her gaze forward. Boyd and his rifle were walking towards her and her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, actually, as of now).

Van turned to face the strange, scary man striding towards them. He glared.

“This him?” he asked Ava, glancing at her. She did not respond, so he asked the man, “You Bob?”

Boyd raised an eyebrow, “Who’s Bob?”

“Who’s Ava?” Van asked.

“Ava is the beautiful blonde standing right beside you, sir.” Boyd stated, “Now who might you be?”

Van folded his arms. Now he really regretted the suit he was wearing. He was unable to flash his muscles at the skinny man with the gun.

“Van Higgins.” He declared, “I don’t know or care who you are, ‘sir’, but I’m going to give you two minutes to stop trespassing on my land.”

Boyd snorted. “Your land?” he turned to Ava. “This Mr. Higgins’ property?”

She shook her head, reluctantly. “No. It ain’t.”

“I thought so.” Boyd said. He turned back to Van, “So I’m going to give you, Mr. Higgins, two minutes to give Ava and me a moment alone to talk.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with her.” Van refused.

He started towards Boyd. Boyd raised the rifle. He stopped.

Boyd smirked. “Glad to see Ava has the sense not to take up with a stupid man. Now I’d like you to get into that flashy car of yours and drive off.”

Van grimaced. He glanced at Ava.

“It’s okay, Van.” She assured, voice shuttering.

Van was not convinced. “He’ll hurt you.”

Ava opened her mouth to deny this, but Boyd beat her to it.

“I don’t know what—if anything—she told you about me, Mr. Higgins, but I can assure you, hand on the bible, that I’d never hurt the love of my life, Ava Crowder.”

Van blinked in shock. “The love of your what—? Jackie, who is this guy?”

“Please, Van, just go.” Ava pleaded.

Van stared at her worried beautiful face, then turned towards his expensive car.

“Alright then…” he agreed, “I’ll go…”

He stepped cautiously over to his car, unlocked with a beep by pressing the button on the keychain in his suitpants pocket, and opened the door.

Ava knew he was going for the gun he kept in the glovecompartment.

Van slowly got into the driver’s seat of his vehicle, without closing the door behind him.

“Van, don’t!” Ava begged.

He knew what she meant.

So did Boyd, apparently, because he raised the rifle in both of his hands and aimed it at Van through the open door of his car, while walking closer to him.

“My bullet’ll break your through skull before you feel the trigger of your gun under your finger.” He warned, “Now where is it? Under the seat?”

Van did not answer. He glared at Boyd, frozen still, with the rifle pointed at him, between turning to the other man and reaching in the opposite direction for his handgun.

“Glove compartment.” Ava said, quietly.

Van gritted his teeth at the betrayal under duress.

“Give it to me.” Boyd demanded, “Your cellphone, too.”

He removed one of his hands from the rifle so he could hold out his palm towards Van. The rifle was still held towards, Van, as well.

Grudgingly, Van pulled his iPhone from his pocket and slapped it hard into Boyd’s open hand. Then he opened the glovecompartment in front of the empty passengerseat where the woman he thought was Jackie Leonard often sat beside him.

“Slow.” Boyd warned, pressing the mouth of the rifle to Van’s brown hair.

It took what felt like hours to Ava for Van to remove the gun and place it delicately into Boyd’s hand.

When he did, Boyd smiled.

“You’re free to go now, Mr. Higgins.” He allowed, stepping back from the fancy car.

Van took one last, long look at Ava, then shut the door of his car and jammed the keys into the ignition.

Ava and Boyd watched him drive away.

 

* * *

 

Tim Gutterson stood staring down at James Richland, warden of Kentucky State Prison, seated at his desk in his cramped office.

“All I know is the dead guard, Edward Green, left early and the next thing I hear, Boyd Crowder is gone from the infirmary.” Warden recounted.

“Infirmary?” Tim repeated, “What was he doing there?”

“He provoked a fight with another inmate this morning.” Warden informed, “Got beat up pretty bad.”

“Who was this other inmate?” Tim asked.

“Dickie Bennett.” Warden answered.

 

* * *

 

Once again, Dickie Bennett sat in the solitary confinement of a state prison on the floor staring at the white wall in front of him. It had only been a few hours, but it felt like it had been days that he was locked in here.

“Why’d Boyd gotta do that?” Dickie muttered to himself, “What’d I ever do to him?”

“You know what you did to him.” Dickie muttered back. “You shot his woman and killed Raylan’s aunt.”

Every sound echoed, from the prison walls settling to a pipe dripping somewhere. Boredom made Dickie fascinated with the seam of his orange jumpsuit. A string was loose on his pantsleg.

“Ava ain’t Boyd’s woman no more and Boyd don’t even like Raylan. You did him a favor.” He continued to himself.

“If we’d done it now, maybe, but back then…” He responded to himself.

He trailed off to focus on tugging at the loose string. Tugged, and tugged, and tugged—finally it came loose.

Dickie jolted backwards with the force, orange string between two fingers. He hit the wall behind him.

But it was not yet meal time....

Dickie turned to face the metal door. It swung open to reveal a deputy US Marshal…just not the one Dickie was used to.

“All the times I’ve heard your name, Dickie Bennet, I never once considered that ‘Dickie’ wasn’t a nickname for Richard.” Tim Gutterson began, “But then I finally looked at your file and saw that you were born named after a body part. Funny, right? Though not surprising considering you had a brother named Coover.”

Dickie started to stand. “Don’t you talk about my brother—“

“You can stay seated.” Tim warned, patting the gun on his belt. “This won’t take long. I’m just here to ask about the fight you had with Boyd Crowder this morning.”

Dickie sunk back down to the cold, hard concrete floor of the lonely solitary cell.

He was in here because of Boyd.

“He hit me over the head with a book so I taught him a lesson.” Dickie declared, matter-of-factly.

“Why?” Tim asked.

“Why did he hit me over the head with a book or why did I teach him a lesson?” Dickie responded, “Because you know how it is inside these walls, you can’t take no shit from nobody—nobody—or else—“

“Why did he hit you over the head with a book?” Tim clarified, folding his arms.

“I don’t know, he’s Boyd.” Dickie shrugged, “He just does stuff like that.”

“He always has a reason.” Tim reminded, “Maybe today it was so he’d get sent to the infirmary and escape to rob a bank with a guard who he later killed.”

Dickie blinked in surprise. “What? Boyd did that? He better give me a cut of that money seeing as how I made it possible.”

“You’re admitting to being an accessory to robbery and murder?” Tim checked, both dirtyblond eyebrows raised.

“Ho! Who said anything about that?” Dickie exclaimed, “What I meant was I hope Boyd gets caught and brought to justice for his terrible crimes.”

“And you can help with that.” Tim said, “Do you know anything about why Crowder picked today to escape after four years serving his sentence quietly and where he might be headed?”

Dickie shook his head. “You really think he would tell me? The only thing I know is that he had a visitor last Sunday—right in the middle of his sermon—and after he got back from talking to whoever it was, he disbanded his church.”

Tim hmmed in consideration, wondering who it was that had visited Boyd and prompted him to pick a fight, rob a bank, and escape.

It could have been the now dead guard he had robbed the bank with…but then why interrupt Boyd during church when a guard was around all day and could ask him any time?

There had to be security footage (unless it had been deleted). Tim would start there.

* * *

 

“What the hell are you doing here, Boyd?” Ava spat. Her voice was harsh but still shaky with fear.

“I just wanna talk, Ava.” Boyd said.

“Let’s talk inside.” Ava invited, gesturing at the caretaker’s house behind her.

“Why?” Boyd asked, “So you can get your gun and shoot me again?”

“I should have killed you…” Ava muttered.

Boyd, rifle now hanging by his side, started towards Ava. She backed away from him.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.” He attempted.

“How did you find me here?” she asked.

“I called Raylan’s creditcard company pretending to be him.” Boyd explained, “They told me he bought icecream in a little California town called Lebec. Vanilla. It’s the only flavor he likes. The rest was just getting here and asking around.”

“And how many people you have to hurt—to _kill_ —to do that?” Ava questioned.

Boyd grimaced.

“No more than I absolutely had to.” He answered.

Ava sighed, shaking her head of blonde locks. “God, Boyd, you don’t even realize how messed up you are, do you?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t killed people when you absolutely had to, Ava.” Boyd reminded. “You’re no Mother Theresa.”

“I didn’t break out of prison!” she exclaimed, a sudden burst of frustration that surprised both her and Boyd.

“I didn’t ‘break out’ either.” Boyd replied, matter-of-factly. “The warden released for good behavior—provided I rob a bank for him.”

“So you’ve robbed a bank, now too?!” Ava snapped in alarm, “What other crimes have you committed on the two whole days you been out?”

Boyd’s face blushed slightly pink. That had never even occurred to him, honestly, but now he realized he was already failing to convince Ava to let him back into her life.

“That’s about it, actually.” He murmured, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

“Are you gonna kill me?” Ava asked, folding her arms, bare in the sleeveless green sundress.

“Ava, in all the years you’ve known me, have you really not known me?” Boyd griped.

Now, he was mad—no, _offended._

“Last time we saw each other you pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger.” Ava recounted, “Twice, if I remember right.”

“You weren’t in class with me, but I’m assuming you know I passed the first grade.” Boyd replied.

Ava furrowed her forehead. “What’s your point?”

“I know how to count, Ava.” Boyd stated. “I never would have aimed that gun at you if I wasn’t sure it was empty.”

Ava laughed, bitterly. “You made me look at you. I saw that crazy look in your eyes. You don’t even know when you’re lying, it sounds so sweet even you can’t help believing it. But not me, Boyd. Not anymore.”

“I didn’t kill you when you ended the life of your late husband Bowman.” Boyd reasoned, “Though he deserved that death for all the pain—physical and emotional—he caused you, he was my only brother, who I loved dearly, and yet I forgave you.”

“And I forgave you for not doing a damn thing about it for ten years.” Ava retorted, “That was my mistake. I ain’t making the same one again.”

“You don’t have to forgive me.” Boyd allowed, “You just have to listen to me. I spent four long years thinking about what I’d say to you if I ever saw you again. Now let me finally hear it out loud.”

Ava sighed, “Two minutes…”

* * *

 

Chief Deputy Art Mullen reclined the swivelchair behind his paper-covered desk in his office at the Lexington headquarters. Tim was standing on the other side of the desk, recounting what he had learned at the bank and at Tramble prison.

“It was Raylan who visited Crowder before he escaped.” Tim informed.

Neither he nor Art were even all that surprised.

Art sighed, “What’d he say to get Crowder worked up enough to break out?”

“Raylan told him Ava died.” Tim stated, “Showed him a death certificate from Texas.”

“Did Crowder believe him?” Art asked, folding his arms over his buttondown shirt.

“Seemed to.” Tim answered.

“Do _you_ believe him?” Art followed-up.

Tim shrugged ambiguously. “It’s Raylan. Could go either way.”

“Call Texas.” Art told Tim, “See if you can get that death confirmed.”

“If I can’t?” Tim checked.

“Then we’re going to Florida.” Art declared.

* * *

 

Less than fifteen minutes later, Tim was back in Art’s office.

“Pack your bags, chief.” Tim said, as he opened the glass door to the small room.

Art looked up from his computerscreen. “The certificate was fake?”

“No, it was real.” Tim responded, “The clerk in Texas said a US Marshal in a cowboy hat came in flashing his badge. He asked for the death certificate of any unclaimed white woman between the ages of thirty and forty. Clerk gave him a random one from the file cabinet.”

“It’s Texas.” Art reminded, “A lot of guys wear hats like that.”

“Are a lot of guys named ‘Raylan Givens’?” Tim asked.

“Oh, Raylan…” Art groaned. “What flavor of shit stew have you cooked up this time?”

He rose from his desk, using both hands flat on its surface to push himself up. He then opened the top drawer of his desk.

He dug through its contents (paperclips and pens, mostly) in search of sunscreen. He would need it in Miami.

* * *

 

Men are simple creatures, Ava. I often wonder just how many of us simple creatures have fallen in love with you at first sight—your bright green eyes, your long blonde hair that smile…

I know I was one of them. I was eighteen. Too old to be looking at fourteen year old freshman girl making her way through the halls of the high school, the sea of students parting for her as she passed and staring in awe (the boys) and jealousy (the girls).

Who could blame them? They’d never seen a goddess before.

No, Ava, you promised you wouldn’t interrupt me. Let me finish.      

As I was saying, I was just one of those fish in the sea of students. I’d say a shark, but I really wasn’t the man then that I am now. In fact, I was even really a man at all.

I was a boy in love.

But I wasn’t a football player like Bowman. He was fifteen and already bigger than I was, and many grown men.

You cheered for him in that little red skirt on the football field. You walked down the stairs of your widowed mother’s house in your pink prom dress—I know, I was driving the car for you, Bowman, and your friends since ya’ll couldn’t afford a limo.

You walked down the aisle towards him in that white wedding gown, our families on opposite sides of the chapel but joined in that moment by your marriage to my brother, watching in reverence of the goddess in their presence.

I was standing at the altar waiting for you, too. Right next to Bowman, I was his Best Man.

I was happy for him. I’d never seen him smile so wide when he lifted the veil from your face and kissed your lips.

Still, I’d have killed anyone in that room, even Bowman, to take his place.

I would, eventually, but not before I took the place of the preacher standing at the pulpit officiating the ceremony. And Bowman did get killed, eventually, but not by me.

Johnny was standing there, too. He was one of the groomsmen. I glanced at his face for one second and I knew he was a simple creature like me. He had fallen in love with you, at first sight, probably back in high school, just like I had.

He wasn’t good at hiding it. Neither was I.

What does it feel like to be so powerful, Ava? To just look at someone and have them completely under your spell. Your control.

Of course, you didn’t even really realize your power. Maybe you did, at little, but you never took advantage of it. You stayed true to Bowman.

I didn’t have that kind of power until decades later. And even then, it was fear not love that my spell cast and the look wasn’t beauty, it was the promise of a bullet to the head.

Sorry, I’m getting to the point. I know I’ve got a limited amount of time, but remember this is four years of words to say condensed down into two minutes. More than four years, really.  This started a long time ago, probably the first time I saw you in that crowded hallway the first day of my senior year of high school.

I watched you ever since. You knew I did, and you didn’t like it and I apologized for that.

Now, I’m apologizing for not stopping what Bowman did to you.

For not killing him myself when I should have, and letting you become a killer while I was a coward, using love and family loyalty as an excuse not to find the courage to do the right thing.

For letting beating the baby you two would have had together out of you and blaming you for it.  And for letting Bowman almost beat the glowing goddess that walked down the aisle to him out of you.

He almost did, however, he did not succeed. That light didn’t go out until you got locked away in prison and I wasn’t able to save you.

I am sorry for that, too.

But I didn’t fall in love with the goddess, Ava, I fell in love with the girl. The human being that I stand before today asking the forgiveness of.

She doesn’t need to ask my forgiveness.

I forgave for killing my little brother. I forgave her for shooting me even before she pulled the trigger.

What she said—what you said, Ava, was that you put yourself into my shoes and did what you thought I would have done, when you shot me.

You were wrong. I never would have done that to you.

But I don’t blame you for doing what you did. We both do bad things when we feel like we have to.

It was my fault that you didn’t know that I would have rather killed myself than betray you.

I didn’t make it clear to you, then, how much I love you and so I’m telling you now. All of this, everything I’ve said, is to tell—no, prove to you how I feel.

I love you, Ava, and I would never, ever hurt you. If you don’t know anything else about me, if you hate me, if you leave and never see me again, remember that. Remember that, Ava.

There’s only one flavor I like, too. And it’s you.

 

* * *

 

There were tears in Ava’s eyes again. And again, she held them in the bottom eyelids of her green eyes and did not let them out.

Boyd’s words had moved her. But she was not the foolish young woman who had thought he would change, or that he would make her queen of his redneck criminal empire.

“You’re lying.” She accused.

“Look at my face.” Boyd countered, “You know I’m not.”

“You said you’d never heard that aloud before.” Ava said, “How many times did you practice it?”

She smiled and laughed, just a little bit. Boyd smiled wide and laughed fully.

“Only a thousand times.” He chuckled, “In the car on the way over here, and every day in prison. I don’t think I’ve ever annoyed even Raylan as much as I have my cellmate, Sumo.”

Ava’s eyes widened at the name.

If the authorities came for Boyd, they might realize who she was and arrest her, too….but if she called Raylan, he would probably (hopefully) just bring Boyd back to Kentucky to be locked away again.

“Speaking of Raylan, you know he’ll be after you.” Ava reminded, “It was all over the news you broke out.”

“I know.” Boyd nodded. “I was thinking somewhere in Latin America. I don’t think Raylan’s been any further past the border than Mexico.”

Ava tensed.

How should she do this?

Play along like she was going to go with Boyd, then sneak a call to Raylan? Escape from Boyd then call after she (and Zach) were long gone? Shoot Boyd again, perhaps fatally this time?

Ava did not know if she could do that.

She hated him for coming here, for putting both her and their son in danger, but she still loved him, too. That was why she was unable to kill him last time, even though that was what really would have been best for her and her son.

“What country are you thinking of?” Ava asked tentatively.

While Boyd was the only one with the gun, she did not want to make him angry.

Though it should have been impossible, Boyd’s grin grew bigger. He laughed again in joy.

He thought he had won her back.

“Anywhere in the world you want, Ava!” he promised, rushing the rest of the way up the hill towards her, to scoop her up into his arms and spin her around.

Her Body tensed, but she let him, forcing a smile. She could feel the rifle, still in his hand, resting against her back.

Maybe he knew he had not won her back just yet, after all...

 

* * *

 

Dillon Foley was the typical muscular black man. Tall, dark and scary.

But instead of earning a living the way his father had chosen, drug dealing—which had eventually gotten him arrested, sent to prison, and murdered in a gang fight when Dillon was only twelve—Dillon had chosen to become a prison guard.

A prison guard at the very prison his father had been murdered. Tramble.

Now, Dillon stood by the closed door in the office of the warden, James Richland, next to another man who was _almost_ as bald as him but not nearly as black. 

A skinhead named Gunnar Swift, one of the prisoners.

Seated in the folding chair in front of them was another prisoner, an overweight asian man who went by the nickname Sumo.

Dillon wondered why he had been instructed to bring them to the warden’s office. Warden, seated behind his chipped desk, opened his mouth to explain.

“As you all know by now, Boyd Crowder escaped my prison yesterday.” He said, “Now I can _not_ let the police find him before I do.”

“Why?” Sumo asked.

“Don’t worry about why,” Warden dismissed, “just worry about finding him and bring him to me, and in return you’ll get extra privileges.”

“Like what?” Sumo followed-up.

“Does this have anything to do with Edward getting killed?” Dillon checked. “Like revenge or something?”

“Yes, you can think of this as a revenge mission if you’d like.” Warden allowed, “The three of you just need to find him ASAP.”

“I ain’t working with their kind.” Gunnar refused, glaring at Dillon and Sumo. “I hate Boyd, he’s a race-traitor and I’d gladly find him and even kill him for you, warden, but get a white guard to go with me.”

“You’ll go with who I order you to go with.” Warden snapped, “Unless you want to join Dickie Bennett in solitary.”

“Then it wouldn’t be solitary.” Gunnar reminded.

“Not in the same cell.” Warden groaned, “I picked you and Winston Shi because you both have a history with Crowder. Winston, you’re his cellmate.” Sumo nodded. “And you, Gunnar Swift—“

“Got set up by Boyd to get beat on by these Florida assholes.” Gunnar completed, “When I heard he got locked up, I got myself arrested and sent here so I could personally pay him back for that.”

From the folding chair, Sumo glanced back at Gunnar standing behind him and rolled his eyes. 

The white supremacist groups in Tramble had not come near Boyd and his church the entire four years Boyd had been here. They were scared of Boyd even when he was preaching nonviolence in his loud sermons.

Gunnar glared down at Sumo. Sumo returned his gaze forward towards the warden.

“Kill him if you want.” Warden shrugged at Gunnar. “I just need him quiet.”

Dillon narrowed his eyes, “Were you in on the robbery plot Crowder and Edward had?”

“…no.” Warden denied. “And it’s best you don’t ask me that question again, Foley. I wouldn’t want to you to get shived by an inmate the way poor Edward Green was.”

Dillon blinked in surprise, taken aback at being threatened.

Both Sumo and Gunnar chuckled.

“That goes for you, too.” Warden warned them, “After you’ve got Boyd, none of you can breathe a word about this to anybody—not even your little prison gang friends or your lawyers.”

“I told you, warden, I ain’t going with their kind.” Gunnar repeated.

Warden sighed. “Fine…how about this? I’ll send one more white person along, even the odds. Two whites, two minorities. Seems fair.”

“Black and asian aren’t the same…” Sumo muttered.

“More affirmative action bullshit…” Gunnar muttered.

“I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with three prisoners…” Dillon muttered.

“You’ll be fine, Foley,” Warden assured with a smile and the wave of a wrinkled hand, “You’ll be the only one with a gun.”

“…okay…” Dillon accepted, swallowing nervously, “Who’s the white guy you want me to bring along?”

“Hmm…” Warden considered, “Why not get Dickie Bennet out of solitary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like it?


	4. Unexpected Visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...not much to say...

Boyd had set down his rifle to help Ava move the rest of the items she had packed into cardboard boxes from her little house to her truck. But he had also take her shotgun from its home by the front door.

Where he had hidden it, she did not know.

The bright sun watched them from above as they crossed the front yard towards the pickup truck. It was just past midday and it was hot.

Boyd had removed his black blazer and rolled up his white sleeves. His buttondown was still buttoned all the way up to his neck, though, as always.

Ava had changed out of her green sundress and heels, into sensible shorts, t-shirt, and sneakers. Boyd had never seen her look so casual except in her bathrobe in slippers.

“There are toys in this box.” Boyd noted as he set it down in the open back of truck. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Ava?”

Ava tensed. “…they’re for the kids from the special needs school. I sometimes babysit. I was gonna go over to the big house and give them to the owner before I left. Still will, if that’s alright with you.”

Boyd eyed her for a moment, then nodded. “It is.”

The back of the truck was almost full of boxes containing clothes, toys, plates and silverware. Ava had decided to leave the furniture behind. She had been in a hurry.

She could not leave her son Zach behind, though. She had to call Raylan before it was too late.

“I’m gonna go get a tarp to tie over this, so the boxes don’t fall out.” Ava said, gesturing behind her at her cabin, “You can start the truck.”

She reached into the pockets of her cutoff jeans shorts, pulling out the carkeys and then tossing them to Boyd, who stood several feet from her. He caught them, but then stuffed them into the pockets of his dark pants.

“I’ll go with you.” He said.

He still did not trust her.

Ava forced herself to smile.

* * *

 

They were walking back out of the caretaker’s house, Boyd carrying the blue plastic tarp and Ava carrying the rope, when they heard the rumbling of a vehicle on the dirt outside.

“The police already?” Ava worried, taken aback, “But you took Van’s phone. There’s no way he’d have gotten back to town and gotten the cops by now. It’s only been an hour.”

“Maybe it’s Raylan…” Boyd considered.

Ava hoped so. And Boyd’s voice sounded like he hoped so, too.

She wondered if part of the reason he had escaped prison was because he missed the game of cops and robbers the two played.

She bet Raylan missed it, too.

Boyd probably never would have broken out if Raylan had not said something that insinuated he had found Ava. Maybe he had wanted Boyd to break out so he could chase him down and catch him again.

Boyd and Ava crept cautiously out the propped-open front door, onto the roofed porch. They saw the cloud of dust approaching, but the vehicle surrounding it was not a police car nor Raylan’s towncar.

It was Van Higgins’ expensive one.

“No…” Ava groaned.

Why would he come back? Did he _want_ to get killed?

Ava liked Van. She did not want him to die.

Boyd gazed at the oncoming car.

“Hold this.” He told Ava, then plopped the blue tarp into her arms, already holding the spiral of rope.

Ava stood on the wooden porch, clutching both items and watching the car come up the hill, while Boyd ducked back into the cabin through the open door behind her.

He reemerged with a rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other, a few minutes later, just as the car parked in the front yard, next to Ava’s truck and the beat up old car Boyd had bought from the junkie prostitute at the motel.

Van hopped out of his car.

But he was not the only one. Three more men—two from the backseat, one from the passenger seat—hopped out with him.

All four held guns.

“You’re going to need to leave now, Bob!” Van called from the bottom of the hill to Boyd on the porch.

“My name ain’t Bob!” Boyd called back down to him.

“I don’t care what your name is, man, you need to leave.” Van stated.

He marched up the hill, gun in hand, his three friends following him, trying their best to look menacing. One had tattoos indicating a Salvadorian gang, another wore a leatherjacket despite the heat, and the third wore big aviator sunglasses like the guards from the Stanford Prison Experiment. 

Van Higgins himself had taken off his buttondown and suitjacket, revealing his muscles in a tight black t-shirt. He had also freed his hair from the ponytail, letting it hang around his ears.

Boyd raised the rifle, shotgun still hanging in his left hand at his side.

“That’s as far as you four gone go.” He warned.

“You’re outnumbered, Bob.” Van reminded, motioning with the gun in his hand to his four friends behind him.

“I ain’t afraid of the three musketeers.” Boyd dismissed. “Are they really willing to die for you today because they owe you drug money?”

Van furrowed his brow in confusion. “Drug money? I’m not a drug dealer…” 

Boyd furrowed his brow in equal confusion.

Ava sighed. “Gambler. That’s how he can afford the car.”

Boyd chuckled. “You just can’t stay away from the bad boys, can you, Ava?” 

He kept his hazel eyes fixed on Van and his three musketeers instead of glancing at the blonde woman beside him.

Ava dropped the tarp and rope in her arms, then stepped forward, down the porch steps and onto the path between the wooden boards where Boyd stood and the green grass Van stood.

“You are not gonna have a shootout in my front yard!” she exclaimed.

“I’m trying to save you, Jackie.” Van explained, “That’s your ex-husband, right? The abusive one you’re hiding from? Bob?”

Boyd groaned from the porch. “I already told you my name’s not Bob.”

Both Ava and Van ignored Boyd’s groan. Ava stared pleadingly into Van’s brown eyes.

“You don’t know Bob like I do.” She tried, “He’ll kill all four of you. He might have a bomb with him.”

Boyd grimaced at Ava calling him by the name ‘Bob’. “You, too, Ava?”

“Get out of the way, Jackie.” Van ordered, ignoring Ava’s pleas for him to leave.

“No.” she refused. She planted her sneakers firmly into the dry earth beneath her feet.

Van glanced behind him at his friend with the sunglasses.

“Move her.” He ordered.

Sunglasses stomped forwards, towards Ava. Boyd turned his gun towards him.

“Lay a hand on her and she will be the last thing in this earth you touch.” Boyd threatened.

Van and his two other friends kept their weapons trained on Boyd.

Feeling protected, Sunglasses continued towards Ava, reaching his muscular arms towards her.

Bang!

The gunshot echoed around the ranch. Startled birds took off from the nearby trees for safety in the blue sky.

Ears ringing, Ava gasped as she saw Sunglasses fall backwards, down to the grass, in front of her. Shot in the eye, just like Avery Markham, his sunglasses shattered as he fell. Ava lifted her hands to cover face from the shards and screamed.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Thunderclaps of bullets boomed like drums. Ava moved the palms of her hands from her face to her popping ears.

She dropped to her knees and spun around to see Van and his two remaining friends advancing towards her front porch where Boyd had slipped back inside the house to shoot at them through the front door.

Tattoos cried out in pain as a bullet lodged into the ink image of a skull on his exposed shoulder. He dropped his gun to clutch the bleeding wound.

Unarmed, another bullet soared towards him, striking him in the chest. The tattoo there was of a heart crowned by thorns. Blood seeped out of the hole in its center as the tattooed man dropped to the ground.

Van and Leatherjacket, glanced back at their fallen comrade, then continued up the wooden steps onto the porch, baring their teeth and flaring their nostrils in anger.

Bullets were no longer flying out the front door.

“Bob’s hiding in there.” Van barked, “You go in. I’ll go around back in case he tried to escape.”

Leatherjacket nodded.

He waited until Van had leaped off the porch and started running around the side of the caretaker’s cabin before, cautiously, stepped through the propped open front door.

Ava watched in horror.

What was so wrong with her that every man she loved turned violent?

She had figured out Van was a gambler pretty soon after they had started dating (which is why she was never going to introduce him to Zach) but she never expected _this._ Him hiring three armed men to attack her home—even if it was to protect her from who he believed to be Bob, her abusive ex-husband.

It was sweet, of course, but it was scary.

As afraid and disgusted with herself as she felt, Ava was relieved that Zach was not here, instead safe at Rosa and Luis’ ranch, probably watching Go Diego Go, happy and unaware of the gunfight going on at his own home.

Ava reached into the pocket of her shorts to pull out her cellphone.

Once out, she dialed a number she had spent years trying to forget of a man she had spent years trying to forget.

Raylan Givens.

* * *

 

Raylan Given’s Miami home overlooked the beach, the ocean, and the bikinied beach babes that occupied them both. He liked the small, yet expensive, beachhouse very much.

…but not as much as he liked living in the suburban two-story with his (once again ex) wife Winona and almost six year old daughter, Willa, where another less dangerous and also less exciting new husband had moved in and taken his place.

Winona would get bored of poor, boring Richard, soon, even with her desire to stay stable for Willa. And when the time came, Raylan would be back.

But for now, Raylan enjoyed his single-floor beachhouse as a single man.

…well, sort of single.

One of the bikinied beach babes had wandered in and found her way to his kingsized bed this dark and humid Sunday night. And it was not the first time.

It was too hot, even with the airconditioning, for a comforter on the big bed—or for clothes. Elena lay naked under the white sheet, pretending to sleep while Raylan showered in the adjoining bathroom.

She was full Spanish, Moorish dark hair and eyes but pale Celtic skin. Her parents had emigrated from Cuba, just as their parents had emigrated from Spain, when they were just children being rescued from Fidel Castro via operation Peter Pan in the 1960s.

She was also much too young for Raylan and not nearly blonde enough. He was trying and failing to get over Winona by dating women he saw as her opposite.

The sound of water pelting the tile in the tub ceased. Now only the rush back and forth of the tide, and the occasional crying seagull, entered through the unopened window of the bedroom.

Raylan stepped out of the bathroom, a cloud of steam following him.

He had wrapped a towel around his waist because he and Elena were still in that uncomfortable period between seeing each other naked while sleeping together and seeing each other naked in other situations.

Elena’s eyes were closed, anyway. But with how quickly the white sheet rose and fell with her breathing, Raylan knew she was awake and just trying to avoid the afterward awkwardness.

“I thought you’d just sneak away while I was in there.” Raylan said.

Elena opened her dark eyes and sat up in bed. She did the thing the women did on television and in movies; pulling the covers up to her neck to keep herself unexposed.

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” She joked.

Raylan chuckled. “Thanks for thinking of me. You can go now, if you want.”

“You want me to go?” Elena guessed.

Now, she was the one with the hurt feelings. Raylan tensed. Now, he felt bad.

“No.” he shook his head, “Stay the night if you want. Hell, stay the week. You’ll get tired of me sooner or later.”

“Like your wife got tired of you?” Elena asked. She raised a carefully plucked black eyebrow.

Raylan kept a framed photograph of Winona and Willa on his nightstand, another one unframed one taped to the bathroom mirror. He also still had his old wedding ring in his sock and underwear drawer.

He had not tried to hide his past from Elena.

Elena did not hide hers, either, but she was not old enough to have much of one. An ex-fiancé from college in Georgia, but that was it.

The University of Georgia was where she had learned to like southern drawls and the country boys that spoke with them. So once she got back to Miami, Raylan was irresistible.

“Now you’re trying to hurt my feelings.” Raylan replied, matter-of-factly.

Elena sighed. She reached over, picking up the framed picture and examining it.

“I used to be blonde…” she mused, “Dyed, not natural. The frat boys didn’t mind, though. They liked that Southern Belle thing better than who I really was, the second-gen Cuban girl from Florida.”

“I think you’re exotic.” Raylan attempted, with a shrug.

Elena set the photo in the frame back down on the nightstand, gently, she was being polite. “That’s not what you wanna hear when you’re just trying to fit in.”

Now, Raylan sighed.

This was too weird.

It was the kind of heart-to-heart he would be having with his daughter in about ten years, if she felt comfortable enough to talk to him about these kinds of things even though she only saw him on the weekends.

He had to stop dating women in their twenties. Elena would be the last one, he decided.

(Until the next last one, or Winona took him back.)

“Listen, I have work tomorrow—“ Raylan began.

“You’re still in love with her.” Elena stated.

“I never denied that.” Raylan admitted.

“You shouldn’t be.” Elena told him, “She jerks you around. One minute you’re together, next minute she’s kicked you out and she got a new man—oh, then she’s cheating on the new man with you. She breaks up with the new man, you’re back together…then she kicks you out again. And it keeps going, and going, and going…”

Raylan groaned. Elena was right, of course, but he knew that already and her telling him what he already knew was not going to change anything.

“I thought you were a business major, not psychology.” He deflected.

Elena was neither.

“History.” She corrected.

How many girls, fresh out of college, had there been?

Raylan grimaced, stubbly face turning pink in embarrassment.

Yes, Elena would definitely be the last one.

Elena slide sideways off the bed, sheet still covering her until she swung her legs over the side. There was her black bikini sprawled on the hardwood floor.

She used sunbathing at her Puerto Rican best friend’s pool as an excuse to come visit Raylan at his beachhouse. Her traditional Cuban parents certainly did not know about the older, divorced man who could not even speak Spanish. 

Elena shrugged off the sheet and pulled back on the bikini. Now, standing, she scanned the messy bedroom for the flower-patterned dress she had worn over it and her flipflops.

Raylan watched her search, still standing in the bathroom doorway, holding the towel around his waist. He felt, really, really bad.

“Elena—“he tried as she was slipping the dress over her head.

“You should be with your wife and daughter.” She interrupted. Dress now on, she turned to face Raylan, “A girl needs her father.”

“I’m a bad influence.” Raylan explained, “Coming and going at odd hours, every so often criminals coming to the door, looking to kill me or kidnap them to get to me. Winona was right to kick me out. It’s better this way.”

“You don’t even believe that.” Elena dismissed as she stepped into her flipflops.

“She has a stepfather.” Raylan said, “He’s a good man. Safe, stable. I don’t want her growing up and falling in love with a guy like me. I’d feel better if she married a boy like Richard.”

“What if she grows up to be like you?” Elena asked, “And falls in love with someone like her mother, who loves her, then leaves her, then loves her again and leaves her again?”

Raylan narrowed his brown eyes. “I’m getting confused. You’ve told me not to love my ex-wife anymore because she can’t make up her mind _and_ to get back with her so I can be there for my little girl in the span of three minutes. What are you telling me to do now?”

“…I don’t even know…” Elena sighed. She pulled her purse off of the top of the dresser and started towards the bedroom door.

“Wait,” Raylan called after her, one hand still holding the towel around him, the other vacillating between reaching towards the girl and running through his wet hair in frustration.

He was having waking nightmares of his daughter in twenty years getting her heartbroken by a man she had no business being with in the same way.

Elena kept walking.

His hand chose his wet brown hair.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Elena paused and so did Raylan.

There was a cellphone vibrating on the nightstand, next to the photo of Winona and Willa.

“Just let me get that.” Raylan said, starting barefoot across the floor towards the nightstand. He held the towel with one hand, and grabbed his phone with the other.

Elena, turned to watch him, waiting in front of the bedroom door with her arms folded.

“Who is it?” she asked, “Your wife?”

“…no…” Raylan muttered, staring down at the phone’s screen at the familiar number. “It’s another ex….” He glanced at Elena behind him, “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go.”

There was only one reason Ava Crowder would be calling him.

* * *

 

Carefully, Ava entered her own home through the open front door. She held a handgun she had taken from Sunglasses, and had Tattoos’ gun in the waistband of her shorts, the metal cold against her back.

A tiptoed steps in, she saw Leatherjacket bleeding onto the carpet of her livingroom floor, fallen dead under the coffeetable where her tablet still sat from Sunday night.

Both his open hands were empty. Boyd must have taken his gun.

Now where was he?

Ava glanced around.

Pictures on the wall. Bookshelf. Armchair. Couch. No Boyd.

Bang! Bang!

The sound of gunshots in the backyard Ava could hear even with all the windows in the house closed and curtained.

Van was dead, she knew it. Boyd had killed him.

Holding her breath, Ava left the livingroom, hurrying down the hall towards the back door to the backyard. It was in the kitchen.

She would have to shoot Boyd again. It was the only way to get away.

And if he had killed Van, she would finally hate him enough to do kill him.

The kitchen was mostly undisturbed. No cupboards open, the refrigerators and the oven were still intact.

There was no blood on the tiles, but the rifle Boyd had brought with him, lay on the floor. It must have been empty.

Ava picked it up anyway.

The kitchen door to the back yard had a small window. Ava gazed through its glass, a gun in both hands.

Shockingly, Van was standing upright and alive (at least for now). He was aiming his gun at Boyd and Boyd was aiming Ava’s shotgun at him.

Boyd was on the stone patio, right between Zach’s yellow playhouse and green kiddiepool. There was a red splatter of blood staining his otherwise crisp white shirt. It was still buttoned all the way up, despite the sweat pooling in his underarms and forehead.

Van was on the grass next to the bush. There were grass-stains on his pants and black t-shirt, as if he had been hiding on the ground, possibly under the bush he stood next to, waiting to pounce out at Boyd.

Between the two men was a stone wall.  That was where the bullets shot earlier had hit.

 “How’s this gone go, Mr. Higgins?” Boyd shouted at Van, “Your friends are dead. You wanna join them or you wanna drop your gun and walk away? Now, you’re lucky I’m even giving you that second option. The only reason I am is because Ava seems to care about you and I don’t want to hurt her any more than I have—and than I have to.”

“If you cared about Jackie, you’d realize she doesn’t want you here, Bob!” Van shouted back.

“How many times am I gone have to tell you my name ain’t Bob?” Boyd asked, “I’m starting to think you’re calling me that to annoy me. You wouldn’t do that, now would you, Mr. Higgins?”

Ava groaned, shaking her head. She pushed open the back door and walked into the backyard.

Once again, she moved to stand in between Boyd and Van, hopping up on top of the stone wall so that she was taller than both of them. She faced Boyd.

“You see what you do, Boyd?” she demanded, “You just killed three people. Over what?”

“Ava, darling, they attacked me.” Boyd tried, “You saw—“

“You shot first!” Ava snapped. “And Van’s right! If you cared about me you wouldn’t come to my home and litter my yard and livingroom with bodies!”

“I was trying to protect you.” Boyd stated.

 _“I_ was trying to protect you.” Van countered.

Ava raised both guns in both hands from her higher position atop the wall. The handgun pointed down at Van, the shotgun pointed down at Boyd.

Both sets of eyes widened in shock, both sets of eyebrows raised.

“If either of you ever loved me, this is what’s gonna happen.” She declared.

She looked at Van, “Van, you’re gonna go back to your car, get in and drive away and this time you won’t come back for me or for Boyd.”

She looked at Boyd, “And you, Boyd, you’re gonna drop your gun and let him go. And when he’s lone gone, you’re gonna get back to your car, get in and drive away and you won’t be coming back for me, either, or going after Van.”

Finally, she stepped backwards off of the wall and onto the patio behind her, guns still aimed at Boyd and Van, so she could look at them both. “Understand?”

Boyd opened his mouth.

“Not a word.” Ava pre-empted, “Just nod.”

Both Boyd and Van nodded at her. Then they glanced at each other, wondering if the other would follow Ava’s instructions, or not.

If so, who would move first? If not, who would shoot first?

Gun still pointed in Boyd’s direction, Van began to back away from both him and Ava.

“I was trying to save your life.” He tried one more time.

“Now I’m saving yours.” Ava returned. “Go.”

“I love you, Jackie.” Van said.

 _“Go.”_ Ava repeated, forehead wrinkled in solemnity.

Van sighed in defeat, then retreated out of the backyard, around the side of the caretaker’s house. He did not lower his gun until he was out of sight.

Ava and Boyd were silent, waiting, until they heard the engine of his fancy car ignite and then the rumbling of it driving away down the dirt road.

When they had, Boyd lowered the shotgun and grinned.

Ava kept the rifle trained on his smiling face.

“You know that ain’t loaded, right?” he checked.

Ava nodded, “I know.” She dropped the rifle and turned the handgun towards Boyd.

Boyd’s smile disappeared.

“Ava.”  He attempted, even dropping the shotgun and raising both hands in front of him in surrender and as a barrier between him and the handgun, “You understand that I was defending you and myself when—“

“You understand why I left you yet?” Ava interrupted, “Seems you can’t go a day without killing people! Everything was fine—perfect—until you showed up!”

Boyd closed his eyes, shaking his head sadly.

“Ava, I’m sorry—“

“You’re always sorry, Boyd, but you’ll never change!”

Her finger caressed the trigger of the handgun. She knew the safety was already off. They both knew.

Boyd’s eyes opened, he glanced down at the gun he had dropped onto the stones of the patio. He regretted letting it go.

“I love you, Ava.” Boyd professed, “And I think you still love me too.”

“You’re right.” Ava confirmed, not taking her eyes or her gun’s aim off of Boyd, “I do still love you. But that’s got nothing to do with this. You really should have stayed in prison. Now you’ve given me no choice. I’m sorry, Boyd.”

Boyd stared into Ava’s eyes as she stared back, preparing shoot him.

* * *

 

Gregory Sutter was the new Chief Deputy of the US Marshal Service in Florida, replacing Daniel Grant after he had retired. Art Mullen, Chief Deputy of the US Marshal Service in Kentucky, liked him because with Greg here, Art was not the only man in the room going bald.

It was a Sunday night, and Art and Greg stood in the otherwise all-but empty main section of the Miami Marshal’s Office, where the desks sat out in the open and the wide window overlooked the skyline of the city (though it was not on a very high floor).

Art’s deputy, Tim Gutterson, was seated at the desk of Greg’s deputy (and Art’s former deputy), Raylan Givens.

He was flipping through files strewn on the desk with one hand, while clicking through his computer with the other.

Greg had never seen a Marshall more focused than Raylan before. He watched in fascination.

“Can I have this one, too?” he requested, with a chuckle.

Art laughed. “No, I’ll just send you the ones that give me trouble.”

“Speaking of trouble,” Greg said, “You’re here for Raylan?”

“We are.” Art affirmed, “An old enemy of his, Boyd Crowder—Raylan ever mention him to you?”

Greg shook his head. “No, not really. Maybe in passing, but the name’s not familiar.”

Art raised his eyebrows in surprise. He knew Raylan probably thought about Boyd Crowder every day. Then again, it did not surprise Art that Raylan might have wanted to keep that to himself.

“The two dug coal together.” Art recounted, “They were sort of friends, I guess, until they went their separate ways. Raylan became a Marshal. Crowder became a bank robber. Anyway, Crowder just broke out of prison after he and Raylan had a discussion about a woman they were both involved with.”

“Not at the same time, I hope.” Greg smirked.

“I hope not, either.” Art agreed, not knowing whether there had been overlap between the time Ava Crowder was sleeping with Raylan and the time she started dating Boyd.

“You think Raylan found out and went after him?” Greg guessed.

Art nodded. “We just don’t know where they’d be headed. Raylan told Crowder that the woman, Ava Crowder—she Crowder’s sister-in-law, not his sister—was dead, but Tim and I found out that wasn’t true.”

“He was involved with his sister-in-law?” Greg snickered, “Only in Kentucky…”

“Hey.”

Both Greg and Art were surprised by Tim’s voice. They looked over at him, sitting in the desk. He looked up at Greg, a serious look in his eyes.

“Only we can make fun of Kentucky.” He said, “You’re not from there.”

“No offense.” Greg retreated, “Florida’s got its own kind of craziness, too.”

Tim turned back to the computerscreen. 

Greg turned back to Art. Art was smiling.

“Boyd wasn’t with Ava until she’d killed his brother with a shotgun.” Art specified. “Neither was, Raylan. And then he shot Boyd—didn’t kill him, though.” He chuckled, “I know, it’s a crazy story.”

Greg blinked, taking it all in.

How had he never heard this before? How had Raylan been working for him for four years and the man never mentioned all this?

“Hey.”

Tim’s voice again. Art and Greg looked over at him.

“I found something.” Tim said.

He held up a piece of paper in his hand. On it was a news article about a Pumpkin Patch. In the background of its photograph, Ava Crowder.

Art eyed the image, squinting to get a better look.

“How’d Raylan find that?” he asked.

“He didn’t.” Tim said, “Someone else found it for him.”

In his other hand he held up an envelope. In the corner was a return address.

The name, Rachel Brooks.

* * *

 

Boyd stared into Ava’s eyes as she stared back, preparing shoot him.

Muttering to himself, Boyd began to pray to god. If he had never truly believed before, he desperately believed now.

Ava, finger shaking on the trigger, closed her green eyes, not wanting to see the bullet pierce Boyd’s skull—the light flashing out of his hazel eyes like the explosion he was as he died.

She started to pull—

“Mom!”

Ava’s eyes jolted open in shock. She whipped her head, blonde hair with it, in the direction of her son’s voice.

Zach was standing there on the grass of the backyard where Van had stood only minutes ago. His eyes, green like Ava’s, were wide in confusion as he gaped at his mother pointing a gun at a strange man.

“Zachariah!” Ava gasped, “What are you doing here?!”


	5. On the Run

“Zachariah!” Ava gasped, “What are you doing here?!”

She lowered the handgun.

Zach was standing there on the grass of the backyard where Van had stood only minutes ago. His eyes, green like Ava’s, were wide in confusion as he gaped at his mother pointing a gun at a strange man.

At that moment, Rosa came running up behind him as fast as she could, almost tripping over her long, striped skirt. Her eyes were wide, too, in fear.

“I let go of him for one minute to call the police and he got away from me!” she cried, out of breath, “We saw the bodies! What happened here?!”

“What are you doing here?” Ava repeated.

“He forgot his toy, we came back to get it.” Rosa explained.

“No, no, no, no…” Ava muttered. She shook her head, covering her face with her free hand.

Boyd, who had been just as shocked to see Zach as Ava was (and as Rosa was to see the dead bodies decorating Ava’s yard and home) took this opportunity to reach down and reclaim the shotgun he had dropped.

Then, he addressed the young boy.

“You’re name’s Zachariah?” he asked him. Zach nodded. “Where’s your daddy, Zachariah?”

“Don’t talk to him!” Ava screeched at Boyd. She then turned to her son, “Go with Rosa right now, honey.” She looked at Rosa.

 Rosa nodded at Ava then scooped Zach into her arms.

Just as she was about to hurry away with the child, Boyd aimed the shotgun at her.

Rosa gasped, freezing in fear, arms tense around Zach. Boyd lowered the gun, but kept it in his hand in case he had to raise it again.

“Both of you are staying right here until Zachariah answers my question.” Boyd told Rosa. He then spoke to Zach again, a little softer, “Zachariah, where is your daddy?”

“Van’s his father.” Ava lied.

She rushed towards Boyd, handgun at her side. He ignored her, continuing to stare at Zach.

The boy was brown-haired with a buttoned up dress-shirt. About four years old.

Ava would have had to be about four months pregnant before she showed, then she was on the run, gave birth five months later—maybe less since first children are often premature, she was an older mother and had had a previous miscarriage.

The child was his, Boyd knew.

And suddenly, he finally understood why Ava had shot him before and why she wanted to shoot him now.

“I don’t have a daddy.” Zach told Boyd, “Just a mommy.”

Boyd dropped the shotgun he had been holding at his side in one hand. He knew Ava would not shoot him now, in front of their son.

Rosa glanced worriedly at Ava. Ava glanced worriedly right back. Neither knew what to do.

“The police are already on their way.” Rosa declared to reassure Ava and scare Boyd.

Instead, she scared Ava.

“Rosa, there’s a lot I haven’t told you and Luis.” She said, “I know we’ve become friends and you two love my little boy like he’s your own, but we have to go now.”

Rosa furrowed her black eyebrows in concern. “Why? Where?”

“It’s better you don’t know that.” Ava said. She looked from Rosa’s face down at Zach’s, “Zach, honey, come here to mommy.”

Reluctantly, Rosa set Zach down onto the grass and let him toddle across over to Ava.

Boyd watched.

Ava knelt so that she could be eye-level with her young son. He gazed at her in confusion, she put her handgun down so she could place both hands onto both his shoulders.

“We’re going to move away, now, honey.” She informed him, smiling weakly with tears in her eyes.

“Why?” Zach asked.

“Because there are people trying to get us.” Ava explained, but not really, “And the only way we’ll be safe from them is if we leave now.”

Zach gulped. He was crying and too young to hold back his tears, “But I don’t wanna go, mom.”

“I know, honey, I don’t want to either.” Ava comforted, “But we have to. I know you’ll miss your friends at school, and here at the ranch, and all the horses, too. I know you’ll miss Aunt Rosa and Uncle Luis. But it’s time to say goodbye, now. Turn around and say goodbye to Rosa, Zachariah.”

Zach shook his head. “No.” he stomped his foot, thinking that if he refused to say goodbye then he would not have to leave.

“Zachariah.” Ava repeated, voice and facial expression stern.

Face red with tears, Zach sucked the mucus back into his nose and turned around. “Bye Aunt Rosa…” he sobbed.

Tears flowed down Rosa’s tan cheeks, too. She really did love the boy like her own son. “Goodbye, Zachariah.”

Ava grimaced at the pain caused by the return of Boyd Crowder. It was unintentional, but it was pain all the same.

She rose to her full height, picking up Zach with her. She turned to Boyd, who was oddly silent, and glared.

“See what you’ve done.” She told him.

Boyd could not meet her gaze. He stared down at the stones of the patio in genuine shame.

* * *

 

Dickie Bennet, Winston ‘Sumo’ Shi, and Gunnar Swift were not only handcuffed, but also chained together. Prison guard Dillon Foley marched them across the beige carpet towards the gateway leading from the inside of the Louisville Regional Airport to the plane, casually, like he was taking his dogs for a walk.

The passengers waiting on the black-cushioned chairs to board in the lobby surrounding the boarding gate stared in confusion and mild alarm at this strange sight of three men in orange jumpsuits being led by a man in a navyblue uniform. They glanced at each other, whispering amongst themselves, wondering what was happening and why.

Dillon approached the desk in front of the gate behind which a flight attendant stood, furrowing her foundation covered brow. She also wore a navyblue uniform.

“Excuse me, sir—“she began.

“I have to transfer these prisoners to Texas.” Dillon declared, “My name is US Marshal Timothy Gutterson.”

With the hand that was not holding the chain connected to his three prisoners’ cuffs, Dillon reached into his pocket and pulled out a fake badge and a fake ID. He flashed them at the flight attendant.

Tramble prison had recorded Tim Gutterson’s information when he had visited the day before. It was not difficult to replace the picture of a white man with the black guard Dillon Foley’s on an identification card they printed—especially with the help of a skilled inmate in prison for a similar crime.

“We weren’t told anything about that.” Attendant said.

“Well, we sent the memo.” Dillon shrugged, “Airlines aren’t exactly known from prompt service.”

Attendant’s lipstick-covered mouth scowled. “Then don’t be surprised if you have to wait.”

Dillon sighed. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to arrest anyone today…”

Attendant shadowed eyes widened as she tensed. Then, she forced a smile.

“Go on in.” she invited, gesturing to the tunnel-ramp that led up to the plane. “Enjoy your flight.”

Dillon smiled back. He yanked the chain connected to the three prisoners’ handcuffs and pulled them towards the gate.

* * *

 

“I swear, Ava, I didn’t know.” Boyd told Ava.

“I believe you.” Ava accepted.

They were in front seat the beat up old car Boyd had bought back at the motel in Oklahoma. Zach was strapped into the carseat removed from Ava’s truck in the back, next to him was the bag of pink-stained cash Boyd had stolen from the Eddyville bank.

Zach was still crying.

They had left everything behind. The home, their friends, their life.

The old car wound, rose and fell, along the curves and hills of the California mountain road. They were heading towards the small town of Lebec.

Boyd was driving, both hands on the wheel. Ava had the handgun pointed at him, resting on her lap so Zach could not see.

“I never would have come if I did.” Boyd continued.

“That’s a lie, Boyd.” Ava replied. “You would’ve come sooner.”

“It wouldn’t have been like this.” Boyd tried. “I would’ve done things the right way.”

“I don’t think you’re capable of that.” Ava dismissed.

Boyd sighed.

“So where am I taking us?” he asked, “The police station so I can be arrested and you can get a deal for being the one to turn me in?”

“Just drive.” Ava said.

“Or are you waiting til the motion puts Zachariah to sleep?” Boyd continued, “That way I can park, and you can lead me out into the woods somewhere and finish what you started before he interrupted you?”

Ava glared. Boyd was not looking at her, he was just staring at the road ahead, but she knew he saw.

He thought he could talk his way out of this. He probably could. So she had to keep him from talking.

“Quiet.” She warned, stroking the metal of the handgun in her fingers.

Behind them, Zach had finally stopped crying. He sniffled, wiping his dripping reddened nose with one sleeve and his dripping reddened eyes with the other.

Ava glanced back at him. “Honey, don’t do that. It’s not clean.”

“We left the tissues back home.” He grumbled bitterly, continuing to wipe his face with the sleeve of his nice buttondown.

Ava almost cried again, herself. She hated seeing her son so sad.

“We had a life here.” She muttered sharply to Boyd. “Why’d you have to go and ruin it?”

He kept driving, tied shoe steady on the petal, tattooed hands carefully controlling the wheel, especially on the sharp turns of the winding country road.

Zach stared out the window beside him. Hills, green and yellow with sparse, dehydrated vegetation rolled past.

Occasionally there was another car. But mostly they were alone on the road.

Suddenly, a policecar with a blaring siren blazed past down the opposite lane of the road, towards of the ranch Ava, Zach and Boyd had fled. Then another. And another.

Both Boyd and Ava tensed, eyes forward at the road ahead—and at the rearview mirror making sure the policecars continued speeding in the opposite direction. Zach stared in fascination at the fast cars and flashing lights.

When they had gone, he looked ahead of him at the long blonde hair of his mother.

“Mom?” he said.

“What is it, honey?” Ava responded.

“Who’s trying to get us?” Zach asked. “Is it bad people?”

“Uh, yes…but we’re safe as long as we keep driving.” Ava answered, uncomfortably.

“Why don’t they just turn good?” Zach followed up. “Like he did?”

Zach pointed at the back of the driver’s seat where Boyd sat.

Ava furrowed her brow, “What do you mean, honey?”

“The shouting man was bad, but then he went to prison and became the Prison Preacher.” Zach reminded, “Is that why they let him out? Because he turned good? Or just so he can protect us from the bad people?”

“Prison Preacher?” Ava sputtered. 

Zach had recognized Boyd’s voice. She instantly regretted ever letting Zach listen to that radio show.

Boyd chuckled. He was grinning wide.

“I didn’t realize you were a fan of mine, Zachariah.” He said, glancing back at Zach through the rearview mirror.

 “We always listened to you every Sunday night.” Zach told him, “Except last Sunday, you weren’t there. Where’d you go?”

“I was already on my way to see you.” Boyd smiled.

Ava groaned. She would have stopped the conversation right there if Zach had not smiled back.

He was forgetting his sadness, distracted by what to him was probably the equivalent of a cartoon character stepping out of the televisionscreeen to play with him—which probably seemed completely normal to a four year old who did not know enough about the world to not realize that was out of the ordinary.

“You saved us from the bad guys that came to our house.” Zach noted.

“I did.” Boyd nodded.

“So why was mommy pointing a gun at you?” Zach inquired.

“She didn’t know I wasn’t one of them.” Boyd replied. “But now she does. Right, Ava?” He turned his smile towards her.

Ava nodded, not even bothering to make herself smile back.

It was almost sweet. _Almost._ Maybe if they talking about something other than how Boyd had murdered three men in one day for no justifiable reason.

Of course, _Boyd_ thought it was justified.

He would not have done it if he did not. And that was his problem. He truly believed he was doing what was right.

And now, he was acting like she no longer had a gun trained on him just because he was making her— _their_ —son smile.

Ava stared out the window ahead of her.

Lebec was visible now. There was the grocery store, the middle school, the bank where she had cashed out all the money in her account.

That bag of cash was in the backseat, too, next to Boyd’s bag of stolen bills.

“Are we gonna say bye to everyone, mommy?” Zach asked Ava, noticing that they were approaching the town he went to preschool in.

“Yes, what are we doing here?” Boyd added.

He lowered his foot’s pressure on the gaspedal. The old car slowed, just as the sign by the side of the road changed the speedlimit from 40 to 25.

He knew Ava could not turn him in to the police without risking getting caught and separated from Zach. So why?

Ava waited to answer Boyd’s question until they were driving down the main street of Lebec. Both of them kept their eyes out for police cars in the mirrors on the sides of the car doors, but all they saw were townspeople walking down the sidewalk and other cars stalled at the stoplight.

“Stop here.” Ava finally said.

Boyd parked the old car in front of the bus station. A few people were already seated on the wooden bench in front of the tiny building where tickets were sold, their suitcases on their laps or between their legs.

“Ava—“ Boyd said.

“Get your money and get out.” Ava growled, “A bus’ll take to you Los Angeles or Bakersfield. Your choice.”

 Boyd glanced out the window at the station, then at Zach behind him, and finally at Ava.

“You can’t do this.” Boyd refused, whispering so that only Ava could hear, “You can’t make me leave you. _Him.”_ He looked back at Zach again.

Zach started to cry again.

“Mommy, you can’t send the shouting man away!” he sobbed, “He saved us! He’s protecting us!”

Ava turned to face him. “Zachariah, honey, there are things you’re just too young to understand. Remember how I told you that bad men that turn good can turn bad again? Well that’s why the shouting man’s gotta leave. He can’t be anywhere near us when he turns bad again.”

Zach shook his head. “He won’t turn bad again.” He told his mother, then turned to his father, “You won’t, right?”

Boyd sighed.

He knew Ava was right for sending him away and he should have been thankful she was so merciful as to spare his life a second time—this time without shooting him.

But he loved her.

And he loved his son even though he had only just met him, with a love more powerful than anything he had ever experienced in his entire life. More powerful than his love for god back when he was a true believer.

Still, was this love strong enough for him to finally make an unselfish decision?

Boyd knew Ava was better off without him, but he had come anyway because he loved her and wanted to be with her and Boyd Crowder always got what he wanted.

Boyd knew Zach was better off without him, too, but he loved his son and wanted to care for him…but was he willing to give up what he wanted for his son’s sake?

Boyd stared into Zach’s eyes—green, like his mother’s. They were red, too, now. Zach was rubbing them again as tears fell from them freely like innocent rain.

“Look at me, Zachariah.” Boyd said and Zach stopped rubbing his eyes to look up at him, “Your mother is right. I have to leave. And that means you’ve gotta be the man now, so no more crying. Your mother can protect you, but you have to listen to her and do what she says.”

“Are you going back to prison?” Zach asked, arms lowering back to his sides so he could stare at Boyd with wide, reddened eyes.

“I hope not.” Boyd chuckle, light and sad.

He was doing the right thing by leaving now.

…but that did not mean he had to do _every_ right and turn himself in to the authorities.

“I will be thinking of you.” Boyd continued, “And even if they don’t play my radio show again, you can think of me, too, on Sunday nights. You’ll do that for me?”

Zach nodded.

“I’ll miss you, shouting man…” he said. Even though he had only known Boyd for an hour, the familiar southern drawl had been a comforting and constant presence (despite the contents of the sermons mostly being shouting about violent crime) ever since he could remember.

“I’ll miss you, too.” Boyd returned, “Would you hand me that bag, over there on your left?”

Zach glanced to his side. He saw the odd bag, some pink-tinted money poking out of the top, not closed all the way.  He picked it up with both hands by both hands and held it out in front of him for Boyd.

“Thank you.” Boyd said as he took the bag, “Goodbye, now, Zachariah.”

The little boy watched the man turn away, nod at his mother solemnly, then open the car door and get out.

* * *

 

Parked in front of a federal morgue in Austin, Texas on a Monday afternoon, Dickie Bennet, Gunnar Swift and Sumo Shi sat on the metal floor, chained together in the back of a rented U-Haul van. The radio was left on to occupy them, but the keys were not in the ignition.

“Isn’t this the part where we escape?” Dickie proposed. He was leaning against the windowless wall.

“Not until we’ve killed Boyd.” Gunnar declared, hunched against the locked back door.

“I know you got beat up because of him,” Sumo reminded, “but that was because you had your sister beat up his girlfriend.”

He was seated against both front seats, across from Gunnar, taking up the entire space from wall to wall, due to his large size.

“They’re race traitors.” Gunnar stated, “He let coloreds into his church, and she spent time in Noble’s Holler doing who knows what kind of sick miscegenation in exchange for a safe hiding place from her husband.”

“You think Limehouse made them do that?” Dickie wondered.

He was already imagining the way the pornography would begin. Innocent, battered white woman comes running into the arms of the big, strong black man and his big, strong black… Dickie shook his head and thought from his mind.

“You know those blacks are always trying to steal our women.” Gunnar suspected.

Sumo groaned, shaking his head. “You guys are ridiculous.”

“You know how it feels, don’t you?” Gunnar guessed, “All those oriental girls marrying white men—“

“Just shut up.” Sumo exclaimed, “Listen to the radio.” He gestured behind him at the front of the van.

Dickie and Gunnar silenced. They listened.

_A tractortrailer overturned in Oklahoma early Sunday morning, injuring the driver. Now awake, the driver Joseph_ _Scalisi tells his story:_

_‘I was carjacked by Boyd Crowder—you know the prison preacher, from the radio—he was forcing me to drive him to California.’_

“Hear that?” Sumo asked. “We came to Texas for nothing. Boyd’s going to California.”

“We’ll alert the guard to this newfound information as so as he returns.” Dickie suggested.

“No.” Gunnar countered, “Now that we know where Boyd’s going, we kill the guard, escape, then go kill Boyd.”

Sumo tensed. Participating in the murder of a prison guard, and then of his cellmate, was not what he has signed up for—not that he had even ‘signed up’ for this mission, the warden had forced him to.

“California’s a big place.” Sumo reasoned, “We don’t know where he’ll be.”

Gunnar sighed.

“Fine, we’ll wait…” he acquiesced. “But once Boyd’s dead, I’m killing the guard and getting out of this.” He shook the metal handcuffs around his wrists, “Don’t try to stop me unless you’re planning to die with him.”

* * *

 

Boyd did not buy a bus ticket.

He carried his plastic bag of pink cash down the sidewalk of Lebec. Passersby smiled and sometimes even waved as he passed, it was that kind of friendly small town.

He pulled his black blazer tighter around his torso, despite the heat. He did not want the blood on his white buttondown to be visible.

His stomach growled.

Scanning the area in front of him, Boyd saw a convenience store beside him and some small offices across the street in what looked like houses. All the buildings seemed to be shades of beige or brown.

Hungry, Boyd was searching for a restaurant, or at least a bar.

He turned the corner up ahead at a stoplight and froze when he saw a policestation in front of him.

He was about to back away slowly, hoping nobody had noticed him, when he saw a familiar car parked in the small parkinglot of the single-floor station.

It was Van Higgins’ expensive vehicle.

Boyd narrowed his hazel eyes.

Would Van really be stupid enough to report Boyd to the police when he too had participated in the gunfight and in fact was the initial aggressor?

There were no policecars in the lot, otherwise empty except for Van’s car. They must have all driven up to Ava’s ranch after her friend Rosa had called the cops.

Boyd approached the car, casually, as if he was just passing through the parkinglot.

* * *

 

Van Higgins was driving back to his home in Lebec, small enough that it was more of a stationary trailer than an actual house. It looked odd when he parked the fancy new car in front of it. 

He had won the vehicle in a bet from a wealthy realtor who gambled on horse races in his spare time, just like Van did. The difference was, of course, that Van worked with horses and so had a better idea of which one would win a race.

Van’s arms were tense as he steered his car. It was over an hour after the gunfight, but the adrenaline was still flowing through his bloodvessels and his skin was still goosebumped in fear, even in the summer heat.

Van had seen people get beat up before—seen people shot and killed before—all over money. He had even been attacked himself, more than once, and it was after the second time that he had started carrying a gun.

But what had occurred today…well, Van had never experienced anything like that before.

Jackie (whose real name was apparently ‘Ava’) had told him her ex-husband was violent. But killing three men in under ten minutes while being fired upon himself?

That was a level of ruthlessness Van had not expected when he called in the debts of the three men who had died fighting for him today.

And along with the fear Van still felt, there was the guilt of their deaths.

Which was why he had told the police what had happened--though not in full, of course.

In his version he and his friends had been having a friendly visit with his girlfriend Jackie—Ava—when Bob—no, Boyd—had appeared unannounced and started shooting.

(Van’s friends were not alive anyway to tell an alternate story, and he doubted either Boyd or Ava would call the authorities to provide the correct account.)

Van drove fast, far above the speed limit of 40.

He was hurrying home, on a stretch winding country road, with mountains rising ahead and downtown Lebec behind him. His car was the only one on the road.

Pop!

His fancy car jolted, bouncing Van up and down in his seat, the seatbelt tightening to hold him in. Van slammed his shoe down on the break, halting the car.

Then, slowly, he pressed the gas and steered the vehicle over to the shoulder. There, he parked and exited.

By the side of the empty road, Van stood staring at his shiny car and its flat tire. What looked like barbed wire poked out of the rubber.

Van scratched his shaggy brown hair and sighed.

He could call for roadside assistance, since it was fancy, but he grew up working class. He knew how to change a tire. 

Van had opened the trunk and was leaning inside, digging through the horse supplies for the tire iron and spare tire when he heard the footsteps creep up behind him. He was about to turn around when—

“Turn around and I shoot you.”

Van tensed. He knew that drawl.

“It’s you.” He spat, “Boyd.”

“Oh? So you know my name now?” Boyd’s voice laughed behind him.

Van gritted his teeth. Why had he not thought of keeping a gun in the trunk as well as the glovecompartment?

“Bob’s better.” He grunted. “What kind of a name is Boyd?”

“This coming from the man whose parents name him after a kind of vehicle?” Boyd snorted.

“What do you want, man?” he demanded, “You already won! You got Jackie—Ava—whatever her name is!”

He clutched the metal iron in one hand, the edge of the drunk where the horizontal door closed in the other. If he could just turn around fast enough and hit Boyd over the head…

“You went to the police about me.” Boyd stated.

“Yeah, I did, so you better not do anything else that would get you into more trouble.” Van warned.

Back turned to Boyd, he could feel Boyd’s breath on the back of his neck—or, maybe, it was just the wind and the hot sun. Either way, his hair stood up.

“I already killed three men today, Mr. Higgins,” Boyd reasoned, “you really think I’m scared of the trouble a fourth is gone get me into?” He chuckled. “Besides, I’m not planning on getting caught.”

“So you are going to kill me…” Van said, voice and body shaking.

“No, I’m just gone borrow your car, if that’s alright with you.” Boyd replied. “I’ll kill you if that’s what you really want, though.”

“No!” Van exclaimed quickly, “Just take it. The keys are in my pocket. Just reach in—“

“You’ll do that for me, Mr. Higgins.” Boyd instructed, “Just pull them out, real slow, and throw them over there on the ground.”

He pointed to the dusty dirt in front of a bush by the roadside, though Van with his back turned could only see the shadow of his arm, dark on the tan ground.

His pointing hand did not look like it had a gun.

Slowly, Van reached into the pocket of his black pants with one hand. His other hand still clutched the tire iron.

Boyd watched as the carkeys rose from the pocket, held in Van’s hand. Then, they shot through the air, landing on the ground with a poof of dust and skidding towards the bush.

“There they are.” Van invited.

Still staring at Van, back turned to him and face inside the trunk, Boyd sidestepped towards the keys.

Just as he was leaning down to pick them up, Van spun around and swung the metal tire iron at him. It smacked Boyd square in the face, knocking him down to the packed earth.

Van stood over him, casting a dark and tall shadow over Boyd’s fallen form. He sneered down at man and raised the iron high over his should for maximum potential force.

“This is for the men you killed.” He declared.

He struck.

Boyd hopped up and caught the iron in both hands, instantly feeling the pain in his calloused palms. He and Van, now both holding the metal tool turned weapon, struggled to be its sole possessor.

“Let go and I’ll let you live.” Boyd offered, growling at Van and glaring at his contorted face, his own face equally contorted in frustration.

“You were never going to let me live.” Van countered.

“I didn’t even have a gun.” Boyd admitted.

“I know.” Van responded.

He felt a pain in his knee. Boyd had kicked him. He wobbled forward, losing grip on the tire iron. Boyd yanked it away from him.

Van quickly regained balance, but was now weaponless. He glanced at Boyd, tire iron in hand, then at the carkeys on the dusty ground, and finally at the empty road beside them.

Boyd advanced towards him. “In your final moments, Mr. Higgins, just know that you brought this on yourself. You may not be able to find any comfort in that, but I sure will.”

He prepared to swing the iron as if it was a baseball bat.

Van gaped, then turned and sprinted across the empty road away from him.

Boyd did not bother to chase on foot.

Instead, he watched Van go, hand pressed to his face atop the developing bruise where the iron had hit. Then, he walked over to the carkeys and picked them up off the dirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...kudos? comments? please?


	6. A Marshal in Lebec

The sun was setting behind the green mountains surrounding the ranch Ava had made her home for the past four years. Her little cabin, the caretaker’s house, had yellow police tape blocking it off from the newscrew that had driven from the closest channel headquarters in search of a gang violence story.

Rosa, shaken and holding her arms around her body, was giving her statement to a uniformed police officer, next to a policecar with its red and blue lights still flashing. Two EMTs carried a dead body with shattered sunglasses on a stretcher from the grass where it had laid over to the ambulance, its back doors already open.

Raylan Givens scanned the scene as he pulled up the dirt road to the property in a rented car. The new hat (well, four years new), adopted from Boon after the younger man’s death, rested atop its new father, Raylan’s, head.

Raylan unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the vehicle, closing its driver’s side door behind him with his free hand while the other pulled his badge from his black jacket pocket.

Another uniformed officer approached him as soon as he approached the yellow tape.

“Raylan Givens.” He introduced himself, flashing the badge in his hand, “Deputy US Marshal.”

The officer, who was blonde and surprisingly pretty without any makeup nodded. “Alright…” she accepted, “But what does the Marshal Service want with a local shooting?”

“Because I have reason to believe it was a fugitive of mine that did the shooting.” Raylan explained. He glanced past the officer, at the bodies being carried away on stretchers, “Is there a woman here? About your height and hair color?”

He had called Ava back after she had called him in a panic, shouting about how Boyd had arrived at her ranch and started shooting everyone. But she had not answered any of his phone calls.

He hoped she was not among the ‘everyone’ that Boyd had apparently shot. So far, He counted three bodies…

“No.” Officer shook her head, “Should there be?”

“It was her property.” Raylan stated, “I think she goes by the name Jackie Leonard.”

Officer raised both her blonde eyebrows. “You think?”

“Well, I get fake names confused sometimes.” Raylan admitted, “She’s a fugitive of mine, too.”

“Was her real name Ava?” Officer asked.

Raylan blinked in surprise. “How’d you know that?”

“A man came into the station and reported this shooting.” Officer recounted, “He said it was provoked by his girlfriend’s ex-husband who wanted to—and succeeded in—kidnapping her. He said the ex-husband called her ‘Ava’.”

Raylan furrowed his brow as he nodded, considering this information.

So Boyd had kidnapped Ava…

…but what about her son, Zachariah? Where was he? Did Boyd find out about him or was he still unaware?

“What was the boyfriend’s name?” Raylan asked, “I’d like to talk to him.”

“Van Higgins.” Officer informed, “But it would be impossible to talk to him. He was found dead an hour ago by the side of the road. Hit and run, we think—possibly by the ex-husband he told us about.”

Raylan grimaced.

So Boyd had killed _four_ men now. All in one day.

And it was only sunset. Who knew how many more would die before midnight?

Would Ava be one of them? If Boyd had her he would want revenge for her shooting him…

“Did you find a little boy?” Raylan inquired, “About four years old? Brown hair, big green eyes?”

“The son, you mean? Zachariah?” Officer checked, to which Raylan nodded, “Rosa, the woman over there,” she pointed behind her to where Rosa stood speaking with the other officer, “she said the ex-husband took him, too, along with the woman.”

“Damn.” Raylan cursed, shaking his head bitterly.

The promise he had made to Ava about not letting Boyd learn of his son, Zachariah’s, existence had been broken.

Though Raylan had not intended to break it, by telling Boyd that Ava had died, he had inadvertently prompted Boyd to escape prison and search for her, finding both her and his son in the process.

But now that Boyd knew about Zach, maybe he would forgive Ava and understand why she had to shoot him, leave him and hide. Maybe.

Raylan could hope, anyway.

“You think he’ll kill them and then himself?” Officer wondered. That was how these stories usually ended.

Raylan shook his head. “No…” he knew Boyd better than that. “…but he might get them all killed doing something stupid.”

* * *

 

Boyd Crowder clutched the steeringwheel of the fancy car he had stolen from Van Higgins. The wheel was smooth, and so was how it drove—despite the cracked pavement of the California road and the donut spare tire that had replaced the one Boyd had destroyed by leaving barbed wire on the asphalt to trap Van.

This was the most expensive vehicle Boyd had ever driven. And he could not even enjoy it.

His heart raced as he pressed the acceleration pedal. Faster. Faster.

He had to find Ava and Zach before the police did.

Van had probably told the cops that Boyd had kidnapped his former fiancée and his son, as well as the licenseplate of the beat up old car he had supposedly kidnapped them in.

The gun Van had aimed at Boyd in the backyard of Ava’s house sat on the passengerseat next to him. In the backseat was Boyd’s plasticbag of money.

Boyd reached into his pocket, keeping his right hand in control of the steeringwheel and his eyes on the window and the long highway ahead, and pulled out the cellphone he had confiscated from Van.

He looked down at its screen, scrolling through the contacts until he found Jackie Leonard. He pressed the call button.

* * *

 

Zach had finally fallen asleep, strapped into his carseat, in the back of the beat up old car Ava had taken from Boyd when the phone in her shorts pocket buzzed. She took one hand off of the steeringwheel to grab it and one eye off the highway in front of her to glance at its screen.

Van Higgins

…no. He did not have his phone. Boyd took it.

Boyd was calling.

She ignored the call and shoved the cellphone back into her pocket.

It buzzed again.

Groaning, Ava steered the car over to the shoulder of the road. She did not want to drive and talk on the phone with her son in car.

She parked and answered the call.

“What do you want, Boyd?” she hissed.

“Boyd?” Raylan’s voice asked, taken aback, “It’s Raylan.”

Ava gasped in surprise. She had not checked the number this time.

“Raylan?” Ava repeated, whispering so she did not wake Zach, “What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that, Ava. I’m standing in front of your house where EMTs are in the process of removing three bodies. The police told me Boyd kidnapped you and your son.”

“We got away from him. He should be on a bus out of town right now.”

“Really? Cause just killed your boyfriend, Van Higgins, and stole his car—and I don’t think he’d be able to do that from a bus even if he is Boyd Crowder.”

“Van’s dead?!...oh, no…he was supposed to leave. He was supposed to stay away from Boyd.”

“He reported Boyd to the police. They found him an hour later, hit by a car, his own car unaccounted for. You know Boyd’s coming after you.”

“I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

“I know how you feel, Ava.”

“I liked Van. I can’t let Boyd keep doing this. I’m gonna kill him this time. I really am.”

“Where are you?”

“Goodbye, Raylan.”

Ava hung up the phone.

She glanced back Zach, still sleeping peacefully in the backseat, ignorant of the world’s problems and the kind of man his father was—the kind of woman his mother was.

She looked down at the cellphone in her palm again. Then, she dialed the number of Van Higgins, calling Boyd.

* * *

 

Boyd was driving with no true direction, eyes wide open gazing at the road ahead in search of the car Ava had taken from him. Meanwhile, his mind was spinning as fast as the four tires of the fancy car (including the donut) as he tried to think of where Ava would go.

Suddenly, just as he was giving up hope as the sun sank behind the mountains and the sky faded dark, the cellphone, now sitting next to gun on the passengerseat, rang.

The name Jackie Leonard displayed on the screen.

It was Ava.

* * *

 

It was dark when Ava parked in front of Van Higgin’s tiny house on the outskirts of Lebec where she had told Boyd to meet her. She grabbed her handgun and left her sleeping son in the back of the car, keys still in its ignition.

This would not take long.

The expensive vehicle Boyd had stolen from Van was already parked in front of the dead man’s home. Boyd must have found the housekeys and gone inside to see what else he could take from the man in addition to his car, his life and his girlfriend (though he had had her first).

 Quietly, Ava approached the front door, gun in hand.

As soon as Boyd opened it, she would shoot him. She was not giving him a chance to talk his way out this time.

(And if the gunshot woke up Zach, which it undoubtedly would? Then, oh well.)

Ava climbed up the cinderblock steps and knocked.

She could hear the footsteps and motion inside, coming closer to the door.

“Ava?” Boyd’s voice called through the closed door.

“It’s me, Boyd!” Ava called back.

She readied her weapon.

The doorknob turned. Slowly, the door opened.

* * *

 

Prison guard Dillon Foley folded his arms, constricted by the cheap suit he wore, as he eyed the crime scene that he had heard about on the news once his three prisoners had told him Boyd Crowder would be in California. There were no bodies left inside or outside the caretaker’s house of this large ranch in Lebec but the policetape and police officers were still here.

It was twilight. The sky was purple and the only light it provided was that of the half moon rising to take the place of the sun.

Dillon had parked the rented U-Haul van further down the hill and out of sight, then had walked up to the crime scene, leaving his three prisoners handcuffed in the back.

“The man is white, mid-forties, brown hair that sticks straight up.” Dillon described to the police officer standing on the other side of the yellow tape, “The woman’s white, early forties with blonde hair like yours.”

“Yeah, we know who they are and what they look like.” Officer informed, “You’re the second US Marshal to come looking for them, Mr. Gutterson.”

Dillon furrowed his brow. “The second? Who else came here?”

“A marshal named Raylan Givens.” Officer recounted, “I spoke to him myself.”

Dillon grimaced.

Whoever this Raylan Givens guy was, Dillon could not let him catch Boyd Crowder first. If he did, the warden at Tramble would fire Dillon—or worse.

“Well, I regret to inform you that he’s also a fugitive that we’re looking for.” Dillon stated, “He’s a dirty cop that protected Boyd Crowder. He’s the one that helped Crowder break out of prison. Now he’s looking to link back up with him to continue their crime spree.”

Officer gasped, covering her mouth with one hand.

“I let him walk away, just like that…” she scolded herself, shaking her head.

“You had no way of knowing.” Dillon consoled, “But we do need to find him. So any information you have—“

“I have more than information.” Officer declared, “I have his number.” Her face tinted pink with embarrassment, “...we were supposed to go for drinks later, after he caught Boyd Crowder, to celebrate.”

“Can you call him?” Dillon requested, “Ask him where he is?”

“I doubt he’ll tell me.” Officer replied, “But we can track his phone back at the station…”

* * *

 

Slowly, the door opened.

Ava was about to pull the trigger when she found herself pointing her handgun not at Boyd Crowder but at Raylan Givens.

“Raylan?!” Ava exclaimed in shock, “What the hell are you doing here?! Where’s Boyd?!”

“Put the gun down, Ava.” Raylan warned. He patted the holstered gun on his belt with one hand.

Ava lowered her weapon and scowled.

“I hope the reason I ain’t face to face with Boyd right now is cause you already did what I came here to do.” She growled.

“I’m afraid he did not.”

Ava looked past Raylan to see Boyd standing behind him, by the couch in the miniscule livingroom of Van Higgin’s house. He was wearing a plaid buttondown instead of the white, bloodstained shirt, he had had on earlier. Ava recognized it as Van’s, though Van had never worn it buttoned all the way up.

Ava turned her scowl towards Boyd.

“You killed Van.” She spat.

Boyd sighed. “As I already told Raylan, Mr. Higgins’ death came as a surprise to me and I’m sorry to hear that he came to an untimely end after narrowly escaping that fate twice in one day. I guess the gambler’s luck finally ran out.”

“Don’t lie to me, Boyd, I know you ran him over with the car you stole from him.” Ava accused.

“Ava, go back outside and take a look at that vehicle.” Boyd instructed, “Then come back in here and tell me again that I ran over _anything_ with that shiny car.”

Ava turned away from Boyd and Raylan to glance at Van’s expensive car. Except for spare replacing one of its tires, the vehicle was undamaged.

Ava looked back at Boyd, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Then who?” Ava wondered.

“Well, he was a gambler.” Boyd reminded, with a shrug, “I can’t have been his only enemy.”

It was now that Ava noticed the handcuffs around Boyd’s wrists. She looked at Raylan.

“Are you gonna arrest me too?” she asked.

“Well you were about to commit a murder.” Raylan reasoned, “And attempted murder is treated the same by the courts as successful murder.”

“You’re not the courts.” Ava said.

“No, but I answer to them.” Raylan replied.

“You don’t have to tell anyone about this.” Ava pleaded, “Just take Boyd in, and let me and my son go. You owe me that after you broke your promise about not telling Boyd where I was and that he has a son.”

“You think I told him?” Raylan sputtered, narrowing his brown eyes at her.

“You might as well have.” Ava rephrased, “Whatever it was you did say told Boyd enough that he broke out and came here.”

Raylan sighed. “Ava, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be.” Boyd interjected, “How would you feel if someone tried to keep your child from you, Raylan?”

Raylan glanced back at Boyd. “I’m not a criminal.”

Boyd raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that, old friend?”

He did have a point, Raylan knew. Raylan had committed fraud to hide Ava from Boyd, and that was the least offensive of the illegal things he had done in order to do what he believed was right.

Raylan turned back towards Ava.

“I’ll give you a ten minute head start.” He told her, “After that, I’m coming after you. I have to this time.”

Ava gaped.

“You can’t!” she cried, “You promised!”

Raylan shook his head. “That was before Boyd broke out. Now he knows about the boy, and he’ll always be trying to get out and look for him.”

“That’s why you’ve gotta let me kill him.” Ava returned.

Boyd blinked in shock and offense from behind Raylan. “Ava, I thought we’d moved past those hard feelings once you realized I am not the one responsible for your new lover’s demise.”

“That don’t excuse all the other things you’ve done.” Ava glared past Raylan to tell him.

Raylan eyed Ava. “Look here, Ava. If you threaten to kill one of my fugitives one more time, you’ll be the fugitive that’s dead.”

Now Ava blinked in shock and offense. Then, she narrowed her green eyes.

“You wouldn’t kill me.” She tested.

Raylan shrugged, “You’d be surprised.”

Ava raised her handgun again, aiming it at Raylan. “You’d shoot me? With my son sleeping in the car over there?”

“It’s what you would’ve done to Boyd.” Raylan reminded. “And if that wasn’t enough, you know pointing your weapon at me now already gives me the right to kill you.”

Ava did not lower the gun. “You’re gonna get to yours before I pull the trigger?”

Raylan continued to look her in the eye, not even reaching for his gun yet.

“You know I can.” He said, “But I won’t have to.”

“You’d be surprised.” Ava echoed his earlier words.

But before she could shoot the handgun in her fingers, the chain connecting two handcuffs caught Raylan around the neck. Boyd had grabbed and was now strangling Raylan with his back turned to the Marshal because he hand been handcuffed with his hands behind his back.

Raylan struggled to break free of Boyd’s grasp. One clutched the chain pressing hard into his neck, the other arm reached for his gun.

“Ava, run!” Boyd shouted, turning his neck uncomfortably so that he could see her with his back still turned to her and Raylan, “My boy ain’t growing up in the fostercare!”

Ava stared at Boyd and Raylan in shock for a moment. Then, she turned from the doorway to run back down the cinderblock steps to the beat up old car with Zach still sleeping in the backseat.

But just as she did a rental U-Haul van turned off the main dirt road and sped towards the tiny home of Van Higgins. It screeched to a sudden stop, and the figures of four men, shadowy in the dim light, jumped out—one from the front seat, three from the storage space in the back.

They all pointed guns at Ava, Boyd and Raylan standing in the doorway of the small house.

* * *

 

Art Mullen sat on one of those thing, fake-leather black chairs in the brown-carpeted lobby of Los Angeles International Airport. Tim Gutterson stood beside him, keeping watch.

Finally, Tim’s sniper eyes located their target.

Rachel Brooks approached wearing her brown _real_ leatherjacket, only a few shades lighter than her skin. It was cold in Washington State, but it was hot in California.

“Over here.” Tim called.

Rachel glanced around the crowd of passengers, hurrying towards their flights or to collect their luggage from the carousel, for the source of the voice. Finally, she saw Tim and Art, and strode in their direction.

Art stood up as she approached. He smiled, even though he was annoyed with her.

“Before you say anything,” Rachel began, “when I sent Raylan that picture of Ava Crowder and where she was, I thought he go there to take her in. I never thought he’d let her go and give Boyd Crowder cause to believe he’d found her.”

“I know, I know, Rachel.” Art accepted, “But as chief of the Seattle office and former chief of the one in Lexington, I thought you’d have better judgement than that.”

Rachel sighed. “I was just trying to help a friend out…”  

“Well, let’s go find our friend, then.” Art decided, matter-of-factly, “Help him catch Crowder. _Again.”_

Rachel nodded. Then she turned to Tim.

“Are you purposefully ignoring me or is it just the jetlag making you stare off into space right past me?” She asked.

“I don’t get jetlag on account of I learned to stay awake for over twenty-four hours at a time back when I was a sniper in the army.” Tim stated, “But I am kinda pissed you and Raylan hid the whole finding Ava thing from me. Now, keeping it from Art I understand, old man’s a hardass, but from _me?”_

“You’re a hardass, too.” Rachel replied.

Tim glared at her. Art glared at him.

“I’m a hardass?” he checked, “All the foolishness I let Raylan—and Rachel, even—get away over the years?”

“Notice he didn’t mention your name, Tim.” Rachel added. “You don’t break the rules.”

“Hey, I’ve run my fair share of red lights.” Tim countered.

“You’re law enforcement.” Rachel dismissed, “You’re allowed to.”

“I drank before my twenty first birthday.” Tim tried, “Even smoked a little weed back in highschool—“

“Are we going to argue about who’s the bigger criminal, or are we going to go catch the _real_ criminal?” Art interrupted.

Tim and Rachel tensed. “Catch the real criminal.” They chorused.

“Good.” Art nodded, “Now let’s go.”

Art started past Tim and Rachel, off of the brown carpet and onto the shiny tan linoleum pathway leading towards the airport exit. Once his back was turned to both of them, Rachel turned to Tim again.

“Bullshit.” She disbelieved. “You never smoked any weed.”

“I did.” Tim insisted.

Rachel rolled her brown eyes. She turned and followed Art.

* * *

 

It was dark.

Ava, body tensed in fear, prayed that the four gunmen would not notice her son Zach sleeping in the car to their left—and that he would not wake up and make any noise or movement to cause them to notice.

She squinted her green eyes, attempting to see through the darkness who these four men were.

The bald, black man stepped forward. “Just hand over Boyd Crowder and nobody has to get hurt.”

Ava glanced behind her at Raylan in Boyd, also tense and completely still. They looked past her, at the four gunmen, then at each other.

“You going to let me go so I can shoot them?” Raylan asked Boyd. The handcuff chain connected to both of Boyd’s wrists was still pressed against Raylan’s neck.

“You gone give me the keys to these cuffs and my gun back so I can help you?” Boyd returned.

He was still in the awkward position with his back turned to Raylan and arms stretched out all the way behind him so that he could hold Raylan’s neck with the handcuff chain.

Raylan reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the handcuff keys with that hand that had originally been going for his gun. Boyd raised his arms to release Raylan from the chain chokehold.

Raylan placed the keys into Boyd’s open hands, still outstretched backwards. Then he started out the doorway to stand beside Ava.

“Ava, get inside.” He muttered.

Ava nodded then retreated into the tiny house behind them. She kept her gun drawn because Boyd was in there with her.

Raylan faced the gun man in the dark.

“It’s me, Boyd Crowder.” He lied, “I’m coming out.”

The tallest of the gunmen, a muscular white man with a shaven head snorted. “You ain’t Boyd.”

The shortest of the gunmen joined in on the laughter. “I know that voice. Raylan Givens, my favorite US Marshal!”

Raylan blinked in surprise. “Dickie Bennet? What are you doing out of prison? And out of that wheelchair?”

“Well, I thought I was here to kill Boyd Crowder,” Dickie declared, “but I guess it’s a two for one special tonight.” He pointed his gun at Raylan and prepared to shoot.

“Stop.” The bald black man ordered, “That’s a US Marshal? We can’t kill him!”

Dickie spit onto the dusty ground, but lowered his gun.

“Who are you?” Raylan asked the bald man.

“Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson.” The man lied. “I’ll take it from here.”

Now, Raylan was the one who snorted. “I know Tim Gutterson. He’s a little lighter than you. Got more hair, too. Try again.”

“Dillon Foley.” Dillon admitted, “I’m a prison guard at Tramble. I just want to bring Boyd Crowder back where he belongs.”

“That’s my job.” Raylan stated, “And I’m doing it just fine without your help, Dillon. But thanks for the effort, anyway. You can go now.”

Dillon looked at Raylan in front of him, then at Dickie, Gunnar and Sumo behind him.

“Let’s just shoot him!” Dickie explained.

“No!” Dillon countered, “…he’s outnumbered. I’m sure he’ll be smart enough to just put his gun down and his hands in the air and let us take Boyd.”

“You don’t know Raylan like I do.” Dickie scoffed, “He don’t care he’s outnumbered.”

“That’s because I can drop you all before any of your bullets hit me.” Raylan declared, “So why don’t ya’ll put _your_ guns down and _your_ hands in the air, and not make this any worse for yourselves than it already is—what with the whole, prisonbreak thing we’ve got going on here.”

“I am not going back to prison!” Gunnar roared.

And before Dillon could stop him, he pulled the trigger on the gun he had pointed straight at Raylan.

The gunshot echoed around the area and in the ears of all those that could here. A child in the back of a car started crying loudly.

Gunnar Swift fell backwards and hit the dirt behind him with a thud, gun still in hand.

“I told you.” Raylan shrugged.

Dickie and Sumo gaped in horror. There was blood oozing through their fallen fellow prisoner’s borrowed street clothes (a white t-shirt) and gurgling out of his mouth, open in shock.

Dillon looked Raylan in the eye.

“The gun was _fake.”_ He informed, “I didn’t give them real guns.”

This came as a surprise to both Raylan and Dickie.

Dickie pulled the trigger of his fake gun a few times, hearing the clicks (as well as the child still crying) but no explosion. He glared at Dillon.

“Ho! You gave me a fake?!” he exclaimed, stomping towards the prison guard, “Well, the jokes on you, Foley, I can still beat you with it.”

He raised the weapon high above him into the night air, preparing to bring it down hard upon Dillon’s bald head. Dillon pointed his gun at Dickie.

“Mine is real.” He warned.

Dickie, Dillon, Raylan and even Sumo turned their heads towards the tiny wooden house. Boyd Crowder was descending through the darkness down the cinderblock steps, Ava Crowder right behind him.

He held one gun. Ava held two.

She immediately rushed to the beat up old car where Zach was sobbing in his carseat. She opened the door and got in the backseat next home, whispering “Hush, honey.”

Boyd addressed the prison guard and two remaining prisoners.

“I see Warden James Richland was stupid enough to make the same mistake twice,” He said, “sending his own prisoners to do his dirty work. I take it he didn’t want the authorities to find out it was him who hired me to rob that bank and so sent you idiots to find me and silence me.”

Sumo, who had been quiet throughout this confrontation, finally opened his mouth to speak. “Boyd, I want you to know that I was forced to be here.”

“I believe you, Sumo.” Boyd accepted, “I won’t shoot y _ou.”_ He turned his gun towards Dickie and Dillon, “You two, on the other hand…“

“You’re not shooting anyone, Boyd.” Raylan interjected.

“Come on, Raylan.” Boyd pleased, “Neither one of us like Dickie, and besides, how’re you gone take us all in by yourself?”

“I have backup.” Raylan lied.

Boyd shook his head, “You think I can’t tell when you’re lying to me? If I couldn’t then I would still be behind the bars of my cell in Tramble with Sumo, here, and you would be off somewhere in Kentucky, chasing down fugitives you wish were as fun as me.”

“Florida.” Raylan corrected, “I moved to Miami about four years ago to be with my family.”

Boyd raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? How’d that work out?”

Raylan sighed. “I’m living in a house by the beach. Alone.”

Boyd chuckled. Raylan chuckled, too.

Dickie, Sumo and Dillon watched, then glanced at each other, wondering what to do.

The answer arrived, not from their own minds, but from the flashing red and blue lights of a policecar that pulled up behind them. The pretty blonde officer and her partner, a skinny young man who looked like he just graduated from the Police Academy, hopped out.

Officer pointed her gun at Raylan, glaring. “You never called.”

Raylan, taken aback by the weapon aimed at him and the glare on her face, furrowed his brow. “I was busy.” He gestured at the scene before him.

Boyd Crowder holding a gun. Dillon Foley holding a gun. Dickie Bennet and Sumo Shi holding fake guns. The dead body of Gunnar Swift bleeding on the ground.

The skinny young man noticed the dead body of Gunnar Swift first. “We got a body!” he shouted.

“It was Raylan!” Dickie shouted, immediately, “Raylan Givens murdered that man!”

Officer glanced at him, then at the body, and then back at Raylan. She marched towards him.

“Raylan Givens, you are under arrest.”  


	7. A Crowder Family Vacation

Raylan Givens sat handcuffed in the back of a policecar despite his protests that although he had indeed killed Gunnar Swift, he was not Boyd Crowder’s accomplice in escaping prison and robbing banks. The car door was slammed closed in response to his words and he was left alone in the dark.

His hat had been confiscated.

Raylan watched from the window.

Outside the vehicle Officer and Partner addressed Dillon, Dickie, Sumo and Boyd. All except for Dillon (who the police believed was Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson) had been forced to drop their weapons, the guns—real and fake—lay on the packed earth yard of Van Higgins’ tiny house.

The two cops had not yet noticed Ava and Zach ducked down and silent in the back of the beat up old car.

“The dead man is Boyd Crowder.” Dillon lied to the officers, “He and Givens had some dispute over the money they stole so he shot him just before I arrived.”

“I thought you said he had hair.” Officer reminded, motioning towards the buzzed cut head of the dead Gunnar Swift.

“He must have shaved it since he knew the authorities were looking for him.” Dillon shrugged, “But he still has the Neo Nazi tattoos. You can look for yourself.”

“…uh, that’s okay.” Officer grimaced. She was paid to catch and occasionally kill the criminals—not examine their corpses.

“Who are those three?” Partner wondered, pointing at Boyd, Dickie, and Sumo.

“We’re furniture movers.” Boyd declared quickly, “Just at the wrong place at the wrong time. We arrived in that U-Haul van there to clean out this house, just a few minutes before you pulled up, to see one man holding a gun and another man dead on the ground. ”

Dickie and Sumo glanced at Boyd, then at the two police officers, nodding in agreement to Boyd’s declaration.

Partner and Officer narrowed their eyes in suspicion at all three men.

“What do furniture movers need guns for?” Officer questioned.

“For situations such as these.” Boyd exemplified, matter-of-factly, “We drew our weapons only in self-defense and dropped them as soon as you ordered us to.”

“You have permits for them?” Partner added.

“No, but that’s because we don’t need to.” Boyd answered, “They’re fakes. Just for show, to scare off any would-be robbers from stealing our customers’ silverware and fine china.”

“You know the owner of this house is dead, right?” Officer tested.

Boyd widened his eyes in feigned surprise. “Really? This is the first I’ve heard. How unfortunate…especially since my colleagues and I won’t get reimbursed for our time and effort.”

“You’re pretty well spoken for a man who moves furniture.” Officer commented, hands on her hips.

Boyd smiled. “Well, ma’am, just because I like to work with my hands don’t mean I don’t know enjoy exercising my mind in my spare time. And by the way, you’re pretty _pretty_ for a police officer.”

Officer smiled back, scoffing. “Don’t flirt with me while I’m on the job. I already learned my lesson today.” She glanced at Raylan seated in the back of her police car.

Boyd chuckled. “Are my colleagues and I free to go, since we won’t be moving any furniture today?”

Officer nodded. “You can go.”

“Can we take our fake guns?” Boyd requested, gesturing to the weapons, only two of them fake, on the dirt in front of him.

Officer nodded again.

Boyd bent and picked his gun, the one had had found in Van Higgin’s fancy car, up off of the ground. He turned to Dickie and Sumo.

“Come on, colleagues.” He invited, “Let’s take our toys and go home.” He started towards the U-Haul van.

Sumo reached down and grabbed his fake gun. He followed Boyd.

Dickie glanced at Dillon for help. He did not want to get into the van with Boyd Crowder.

Dillon, who did not care about Dickie but also did not want to let Boyd get away, spoke up.

“I actually need to commandeer that vehicle so I can transport the body of Boyd Crowder to the nearest morgue.” He said.

“We can get a team—“ Partner offered.

“That’s alright.” Dillon refused, “I’m sure they’re busy with the bodies at the ranch. I’ll handle it.”

Partner and Officer nodded.

“We’ll leave you to it, then.” Officer allowed.

She and her Partner got into the front seat of their policecar, her in the driver’s seat. She put the key in the ignition and started the car.

It drove off with Raylan in the back still trying to explain what had really happened.

Boyd, Dickie, Dillon and Sumo watched the policecar go. Once it was gone, they turned to each other.

“Mr. Foley.” Boyd addressed, “You have two options now—“

Before Boyd could even finish his sentence, Sumo had tackled the unsuspecting prison guard standing in front of Boyd down to the dusty ground. Under Sumo’s massive body, Dillon was not crushed to death but he was immobile—unable to draw his gun or shove Sumo off of him.

“Go!” Sumo shouted from atop Dillon’s struggling body, both of them face down.

“Why thank you, Sumo.” Boyd nodded. He turned to Dickie, pointing the gun straight at his face, “You gone try to stop me?”

Dickie shook his head, overgrown mustache shaking with it.

Boyd lowered his gun and jogged over to the beat up old car where Ava and Zach sat in the back. He got into the driver’s seat, found the keys waiting for him in the ignition so turned them.

Dickie, Sumo and Dillon watched Boyd, Ava and Zach drive away.

* * *

 

When Raylan was released from the holdingcell in the Lebec, California police station the last three people he expecting to see in the station lobby were former colleagues Art, Tim and Rachel. They each gave him their own version of an amused but frustrated look.

Rachel was holding his black cowboy hat. She handed it to him and he placed it on top of his brown hair.

Raylan sighed. “I can explain.”

“Do it in the car.” Art said, “Lebec Police put out a bolo on the vehicles last seen where you were arrested. The officer took down their license plates.”

He glanced out the glass doors of the station at the parkinglot outside. There, in the early night darkness, was the rental SUV he, Rachel and Tim had drove up to the small town from the city airport in.

Raylan scanned the small lobby. There was a woman behind the front desk, but it was not Officer.

“Is she going to apologize for arresting me?” he wondered.

“Probably not.” Tim replied, “But she did apologize for letting a prison guard pass himself off as me.”

“Maybe she just thought you had a tan.” Rachel commented, “It is California.”

Tim rolled his eyes.

“That guard’s probably dead by now.” Raylan declared, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Boyd killed him. He said that the guard and three prisoners were sent to find him. The warden was in on his escape and didn’t want anyone to find out.”

“Well, we better get to Crowder before he kills anyone else.” Art stated, already turning and starting towards the exit doors.

Raylan nodded.

Now that Boyd had Zachariah, he might want to kill Ava so she did not take their son away from him again…

* * *

 

Boyd kept one tattooed hand on the steeringwheel of the beat up old car he was driving. The other was on the gun given to him by Ava inside of Van Higgin’s tiny house because she had thought she, he and Raylan would have a shootout with the prison guard and prisoners come to take Boyd.

Ava, buckled in the back next to Zach in his carseat, already regretted giving it to him even though she held a gun of her own in her hand, the other stroking her son’s soft brown hair. His face was still red from crying at the sound of a gunshot, but he had calmed down now.

“Where are we going, Boyd?” Ava demanded.

Boyd ignored her and continued his steady speed down the interstate highway. Theirs was the fastest car on the road, over the speedlimit by almost twenty miles.

The moon was bright above them, now, but otherwise the sky was dark.

“Mom, why’s the shouting man with us again?” Zach wondered, “I thought he had to go away.”

“He had some more people to protect us from, I guess…” Ava answered, voice low and worried as if Boyd was the one they needed protecting from.

She glanced out the window beside her at the darkness outside. There was a large sign they zoomed right past.

_Los Angeles_

_50 Miles_

“LA?” Ava exclaimed, “What are we gonna do there? We won’t be able to hide!”

“We’re just passing through.” Boyd finally spoke, cold and smooth.

“On our way to _where?”_ Ava followed-up.

“San Diego.” Boyd said, “And its twin Tijuana on the other side of the border.”

Ava’s green eyes widened, “Mexico?!”

“Aunt Rosa and Uncle Luis are from Mexico.” Zach interjected.

“I know, honey.” Ava replied, quickly, running a hand through her long blonde hair nervously.

She continued to stare at the back of Boyd’s head. His brown was reaching upwards, as usual, almost scraping the low-ceiling of the cheap car.

“Last time you were in Mexico you got set up by your cousin Johnny, captured by a drug cartel, robbed by the police, and tricked by the men you hired to help you!” Ava reminded Boyd, “Ain’t nothing good gonna come from going to Mexico, especially not with your own…“

She stopped before she said the word ‘son’. Zach was sitting right next to her and listening. (In fact, he had heard that same story she was telling before, in one of Boyd’s sermons on the Prison Preacher Radio Hour.)

Boyd slammed his driving hand down on the steeringwheel and whipped his head around to glare at Ava.

“Now, I have half a mind to leave you by the side of the road, Ava!” he shouted at her, “After what you did to me—not just shooting me and then threatening to kill me three times in one day—but also how tried your goddamn best to keep our—Zachariah—away from me!”

Ava blinked. She was surprised that Boyd respected her decision to keep the secret that Boyd was Zach’s father from the toddler.

Zach’s green eyes were filling with tears again. He had been frightened by Boyd’s volume and anger, and gaped at the man he did not know what his parent.

Seeing this, Boyd’s expression softened. He smiled in embarrassment and apology.

“I’m sorry if I scared you, Zachariah.” He soothed, “Though it’s important to use our words instead of our hands to communicate, I should be more careful about how I choose and say the words I use.”

Zach sniffed.

Boyd turned away from him and Ava, back towards the road. He pressed the break, lightly slowing down the car, and steering it out of the fast lane and merging it diagonally across the highway

“I thought we were going to San Diego.” Ava said, when the car started turning off onto an exit ramp.

“We’re stopping somewhere for the night.” Boyd declared, “And when we leave tomorrow morning, with full bellies and a full tank of gas, it’ll be in a vehicle with a license plate, and make and model, that the police are _not_ looking for.”

“What if the prison guard or Raylan catches up to us?” Ava asked.

“Raylan’s behind bars.” Boyd dismissed, “And I’m sure the prison guard had his gun and his van—if not also his life—taken from him by Dickie Bennett, who by now has probably gotten lost on some dirt road in the California countryside while enjoying his newfound freedom.”

Ava sighed, sinking into her seat next to Zach as the beat up old car got off the highway onto a stretch of road lined by fastfood drivethroughs and cheap motels. In the starless darkness, the glowing letters were bright with artificial light.

* * *

 

It was past Zach’s bedtime. It had been a long, emotional Monday, and it had tired him out. Still, he protested going to sleep by jumping up and down on the probably unwashed comforter of queensize mattress in the motelroom.

The television was on, volume low. Some reporter was detailing the shootout that had occurred in on a ranch Lebec and a mugshot of Boyd Crowder glowered menacingly behind him as the example of the perpetrator.

Boyd Crowder, in the flesh instead of the photograph, was in the tiny bathroom. The door was wide open, so he was visible standing in front of the sink and mirror, and the buzz of an electric razor was audible.

He was shaving his head.

Ava glanced at him from where she stood by the heavy-curtained window. Every few seconds she would move the curtain slightly to gaze out, expecting to see flashing police lights or Raylan Givens.

Then, she glanced at Zach, still bouncing on the bed, barefoot.

“Honey, stop that!” she exploded, suddenly, “Get under those covers and get to sleep!”

Zach, mid jump into the air, let himself fall. He landed crosslegged on the comforter and glared up at his standing mother.

“They’re looking for him.” He informed, pointing at the televisionscreeen image of Boyd’s mugshot. Then he turned towards the bathroom, “They’re looking for you, Boyd Crowder!”

The buzz of the razor stopped.

“I know, Zachariah!” Boyd called back, “And since when did you call me by my first name? I thought I was ‘shouting man’.”

 Zach grinned, first at Boyd then at Ava.

“Boyd Crowder.” He repeated, like a child that had discovered a curse word.

Ava did not even really know why she did not like to hear his sweet little voice say that.

Maybe it because she hated the name, but that was not true. Maybe it was because she hated the man, but that was not true either.

Maybe it was because it was no way for a child to address his father.

Whatever it was, Zach had noticed her discomfort and testing her the way children tested their parents.

“You don’t talk to adults that way.” Ava ordered, “It’s disrespectful.”

“What should I call him then?” Zach asked, innocently. “'Uncle Boyd'? Like I call Uncle Luis 'uncle'?”

Ava shook her head. That would not be right, especially since her first husband was Boyd’s brother and that was just too weird when she considered it.

“Why not go back to 'shouting man'?” she suggested.

“Boyd Crowder.” Zach stated.

Ava groaned.

Boyd exited the bathroom with a razor in hand and no hair on his head that made her blink, then gape.

“Your mother’s right.” He told Zach, who was still facing Ava and so had not yet seen his change in hairstyle, “Besides, with the people out there looking for me you wouldn’t want to say my name too loud and get me into trouble. Don’t you want to protect me, Zachariah, like I’ve protected you?”

Zach nodded. “Uh huh.”

He turned around to smile at Boyd but instead yelped at the sight of Boyd’s new bald head, falling backwards with a plop.

Boyd chuckled. So did Ava, she could not help it.

“I’m gone go get another car, Ava.” Boyd told her.

He made his way past the bed where Zach lay, still in shock, towards Ava, the window and the door to the motelroom. Zach twisted his neck without moving the rest of his small body to watch him.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, folding her arms, “How’re you so sure we’ll be here when you get back?”

“Because I’m taking your only transportation other than the two legs you stand on.” Boyd explained, “You gone go hitchhiking with your little boy this late?”

Ava shook her head. “How you know you won’t get spotted and arrested?”

Boyd stroked his bald head where his cornstalk hair used to stand. “They’re not looking for Walter White.”

Ava examined Boyd, for a moment, then stepped forward. She reached towards his collar with both hands and, delicately, unbuttoned the two top buttons of the plaid shirt he had taken from the dead Van Higgins.

Boyd watched her thin fingers work, allowing this.

She stepped back and examined him again.

“There.” She said, “They’ll never recognize you.”

He did look remarkably different with his collar opened. More different than with just the bald head.

Ava did not like it.

Boyd smiled. He passed by her, opened the door to the motelroom, keys in his free hand, and left.

* * *

 

It was almost midnight when Boyd Crowder returned to the motelroom.

The television and the lights were off. Zach was asleep, tucked under the covers of the queensize bed.

Ava sat awake, in a wooden chair by the window, in the dark.

Boyd creaked open the door as quietly as he could and closed it behind him with just as little noise. He narrowed his hazel eyes and found the silhouette of Ava watching him in the dim light that snuck in from behind the heavy curtains.

The bald head surprised Ava again, even though she had seen it earlier. The top two buttons of the plaid shirt had been rebuttoned, she guessed Boyd must have done that absentmindedly.

He had a paperbag in one hand. A greasy, salty aroma emanated from it.

“I know it’s a little late, but I brought us some dinner.” He informed, in a whisper, raising the bag up in demonstration, “Even bought Zachariah a Happy Meal, though I doubt you let him eat so unhealthily on normal occasions.”

“This ain’t a normal occasion.” Ava replied, whispering as well, and glancing away from Boyd at Zach. “But I think I’ll just let him sleep for now.”

“He looks so peaceful.” Boyd commented, gazing at the rise and fall of the blankets above Zach’s chest.

As if to contradict the statement, Zach let out a loud snore that could have easily come from an adult man. There was drool on his pillow

Boyd blinked. Ava smirked.

“He gets it from your side of the family.” She said.

“Have you ever known me to snore?” Boyd tested, raising a brown eyebrow--the most hair he had left on his shaven head. 

“No.” Ava admitted, “But Bowman did.”

“I know.” Boyd admitted, “I shared a bedroom with him before you did. Though never a bed.”

He handed her the McDonalds bag.  She took it and set it on her lap, opening it with both hands and looking inside.

“Double cheeseburger?” Ava asked, looking up at Boyd.

Boyd nodded. “And fries. A coke, too, in the cupholder. The Happy Meal came with a little bottle of milk.”

Ava pulled out the lidded cup of soda from the cardboard cupholder and sipped at its straw. “Tastes weird…” she commented.

“That’s because it’s diet.” Boyd informed, “I thought you might be watching your figure, since you’ve stayed slim even after having a baby--you look lovely tonight, Ava, by the way. I hope you don't mind me saying so. ”

Ava eyed Boyd, carefully. "I don't. Thank you." She took another sip of the soda, scowled at its taste, then scoffed. “Eat fried food and get to think you’re healthy cause you had it with a diet coke or skim milk.”

She set the medium sized cup on the small wooden table next to the queensize bed where Zach slept. Then she brought out the burger in its box, moving the paperbag down to the carpeted floor so that she could open the box.

Boyd watched. She picked up the burger and bit into it.

Still chewing, Ava looked up at him again and asked, “You’re not gonna eat anything?”

“I already ate on the way.” Boyd assured. “But thank you for your concern, Ava, I know I have become somewhat emaciated during the last four years. Prison food does not agree with me.”

He was eerily calm and casual, as if Ava had not tried to kill him that afternoon and evening. But she knew he still remembered.

As long as their son was around, though, he probably would not act on that memory.

“I know what you mean…” Ava sympathized, remembering her short time in prison.

That was really when the rift between her and Boyd had cracked open in the ground beneath their feet, leaving them on separate sides of the fault line. Then, the gap got wider and wider, with each earthquake; her informing on him for Raylan, her shooting him and running off when she realized she was pregnant, and him finding her, and Zach, and messing up their quiet life in Lebec.

Ava swallowed the food in her mouth then yawned, arms stretching upwards, one of them still holding the bitten burger. She was getting sleepy…

…but she had to stay awake as long as Boyd was here. She did not know what he would do if she fell asleep, and she did not want to find out.

* * *

 

Tuesday morning, just as the sun was rising over Los Angeles’ mountains and smog, four US Marshals parked their rental SUV behind a beat up old car located by a state trooper. The car was boxed in between the SUV and the brick wall of the Walmart it had parked in front of.

They were in a stretch of suburb just outside the city of angels.

Art, Tim, Rachel and Raylan were waiting for the driver when he emerged from the big box store, pushing shoppingcart full of electronics he had just purchased. He furrowed his brow in confusion at them, and they furrowed their brows in confusion at him.

“Is there a problem officers?” the teenage Latino boy asked. His name was Manuel and he looked barely old enough to drive.

He stopped himself and his cart, but keeping the metal cart between him and the marshals blocking his path to his new car from the sidewalk, their vehicle blocking his new car’s exit from the parkinglot.

Raylan Givens stepped across the paved sidewalk towards the tan-skinned boy.

“Where’d you get that car?” he questioned.

 “Man, I didn’t steal nothing.” Manuel refused, “Dude _paid_ me to take this car.”

“What ‘dude’?” Raylan pressed.

“Bald old white dude.” Manuel described, “A skinhead or a cancer patient, I dunno.”

Raylan glanced at Tim, Art and Rachel standing behind him. They shrugged.

Raylan turned back towards Manuel. “Did this ‘bald old white dude’ have an accent?”

Manuel nodded. “Yeah, he sounded like he was from the south. Texas, maybe?”

“Was the money he gave you pink?” Tim asked, remembering the bank robbery in Eddyville on Saturday and the dyepack that had the teller had said she had put inside the bag of cash in her statement.

“He told me it was paint,” Manuel shrugged, “and that he was a house painter. I didn’t ask any questions when he gave it to me.”

“Where’s the rest of it?” Art asked, moving forward to stand beside Raylan.

Manuel smiled sheepishly, and gestured to shoppingcart his other hand still held the pushbar of. There was a flatscreen television, a videogame console, and a laptop. “I spent it all, man…”

Art sighed and glanced at Raylan next to him. Raylan was scanning the parkinglot even though he knew Boyd Crowder was long gone.

“Did he say where he was going by any chance?” he asked the boy.

Manuel shook his head. “I told you I didn’t ask any questions.”

“Well he won’t get far without a car.” Raylan declared, turning away from Manuel to face Art, Tim, and Rachel.

“I’ll call all the rental places in the area.” Rachel replied.

“And I’ll call the local police.” Tim added, “Tell them to let us know if anybody gets carjacked.”

* * *

 

Ava Crowder woke up mid-morning on Tuesday, head pounding and eyelids heavy. Sunlight fazed through the curtains of the window to her side, warming her face.

She was under the blankets of a bed, though she did not remember laying down or tucking herself in.

Gasping, she jolted up and scanned the motelroom.

It was empty.

Boyd and Zach were gone.

“No!” Ava cried, leaping out of bed, throwing the covers off of her body, still wearing the shorts and t-shirt from yesterday.

She ran across the carpet in her socks and yanked open the door. Staring out there was no sign of Boyd or Zach in the parkinglot of the motel.

She slammed the door, and leaned her back against it, sinking down into a seated position.

Boyd had kidnapped Zach.

With teary eyes she glanced at the digital clock on top of the television across from the queensize bed.

10:43 AM

How long had she been asleep? When had Boyd left with Zach? Where had they gone?

Ava snatched her cellphone out of her shorts pockets and called Van Higgins number.

Buzz. Buzz.

Buzz. Buzz.

A phone was vibrating on the wooden table next to the bed. Boyd had left it behind.

Ava pressed the screen of her phone, ending the call.

 _The diet soda!_ Ava realized. It had tasted funny not because it was diet, but because Boyd had put some sort of sleeping medication into it.

Ava glanced down at the screen of her phone. She had received a voicemail. She clicked on the icon with one finger to open it.

_You have one new voice message. To listen to your messages press—_

Ava pressed the 1 on the keyboard.

She listened. Boyd’s familiar southern drawl spoke to hear through scratchy speakers.

_Ava, this is Boyd. If you’re listening to this this then you already I know I have our son and we are long gone. You know where we’re going. Now, it’s up to you whether you call Raylan to hunt us down, and break up this family, or come after us yourself and keep it together. We can start a new life. Or you can ruin all three of ours. I know I deserve that, and so do you, if you’re honest with yourself. But Zachariah does not. He deserves to grow up with both his parents in a happy home somewhere outside of these United States where his mother doesn’t try to murder his father…and his father is a better man than an inmate in a state prison. I want that for our son. If you want that too, you’ll come find us. If you don’t, well…I guess Zachariah and I’ll find out soon enough whether you do or don’t. See you soon, Ava._

Some fumbling, the sound of vehicles on a road, then the message clicked off.

_To save this message—_

Ava exited the voicemail box, swallowing the saliva in her dry mouth.

Would Boyd _really_ leave it up to chance whether or not he got arrested and his son taken away from him again?

Ava doubted it.

Wherever he was, he must have some kind a trap set for it Raylan, or the police, arrived instead of Ava alone. It probably involved explosives.

…hopefully it did not involve Zach.

Phone still in hand, Ava dialed Raylan’s number.


	8. Fatherhood

“Ava? Where are you? I’ll pick you up—”

“We ain’t got time for that, Raylan. I told you where Boyd is and he’s waiting there, he thinks I’m coming. You’ve gotta get there first.”

“You need to come with me.”

“No, I don’t. You know I ain’t gonna run on you this time. I’ve gotta get my son back. Call me back when you get him back from Boyd.”

“Wait—“

And with that, the phone call clicked to end.

Raylan Givens held his cellphone open in his palm. It had been on speaker.  

He sat, unbuckled, in the backseat of the rented SUV motionless in in Los Angeles traffic. Carhorns honking echoing around the highway punctuated the silence and conversation.

Tim Gutterson, sitting next to Raylan, and Art Mullen and Rachel Brooks, sitting in front of him but turned around in their seats, all stared at Raylan.

“Ava’s got a _kid?”_ Art asked, taken aback. He was just asking what the other two were also thinking.

“Yep.” Raylan confirmed, sighing.

“That explains why she went to that pumpkin patch.” Rachel reasoned, “How many adults you know cut jack-o-lanterns just for themselves?”

Tim shrugged. “I like to carve mugshots on them, line them up and then shoot them down in the backyard.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. She did not believe that story.

She looked back at Raylan. So did Tim and Art.

“That’s why you let her go?” she asked.

Raylan nodded. “I thought it would be better for the little boy if he at least had his momma.” Aunt Hellen had been a godsend to Raylan, but it was still hard for him, growing up without a mother—especially with Arlo Givens as a father.

“But not his daddy?” Art checked. Part of him wondered if Raylan had wanted Boyd to escape.

“Hell no.” Raylan declared, “Fathers are terrible. Remember Arlo? Bo Crowder? Even _I’m_ shit as a dad. And if _I’m_ shit, think of how much worse Boyd would do raising a child.”

Art narrowed his eyes. “I take offense to the whole ‘fathers are terrible’ thing. I think I did good with my boys. Though, I don’t know if I could’ve with you, Raylan, I think you would’ve been a problem child even if Arlo had been an upstanding citizen.”

“I was being hyperbolic.” Raylan dismissed. “The fact is, we can’t let Boyd keep Zachariah.”

“Zachariah?” Tim asked, “Why does that name sound familiar…”

“She named the boy after her uncle.” Raylan explained, “Said he was the only man who didn’t want something from her.”

“At least it’s not Boyd Junior.” Tim commented.

“Good Christian name.” Art approved. He was a religious man, after all, and his sons had biblical names, as well.

“Preacher Boyd would approve.” Rachel added, “Did you know he had a radio show for a while? Satellite radio, broadcasting from inside Tramble? The Prison Preacher Radio Hour, it was called. Pretty popular, too—before he broke out, anyway…”

Raylan blinked in surprised.

This was the first time had been informed about Boyd Crowder’s radio show. He had tried his best to put Boyd out of his mind since moving to Florida; refused to even google the criminal’s name.

“They gave that idiot an international pulpit?” Raylan groaned.

“I was shocked, too.” Tim agreed, “Especially considering Crowder admitted to more crimes in his sermons than he had ever even been arrested for.”

Raylan shook his head. “And now we have to go get him again…”

“Let’s go.” Art said.

He and Rachel turned around to face the dashboard of the rented SUV. Rachel was in the driver’s seat.

She stared out the front window. The red taillights of the halted vehicles ahead stared back.

They were not going anywhere anytime soon.

* * *

 

Ava stood up from where she had leaned against the wooden front door of the unlit motelroom. Her hand holding the phone hung at her side as she turned her head.

On the bedside table where Van Higgin’s cellphone, stolen and then left behind by Boyd, had buzzed lay a small book. It was not the bible.

Ava trod across the carpet towards it and picked it up in her free hand.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

She set down her cellphone next to the other one so that she could open the novel with both hands. She flipped through the pages until she reached the last one.

There, she found a note in Boyd’s neat handwriting.

He knew that the rare times she read book, she always read the endings first. She hated surprises.

_Fire in the hole_

So, he was warning her of the surprise he had ready for Raylan or whoever Ava had called for help—and he knew she would call someone. He knew her too well.

Ava closed the book, note still between its last pages.

Under where the book had sat on the table was a set of carkeys.

* * *

 

The Otay County Open Space Preserve was a lush mountain range and forest full of lakes and yellow flowers. It was also a desert right on the border between the United States and Mexico.

There was a dirtroad down from the green mountains into the redbrown desert below, by the border. Boyd Crowder knew this. He had looked it up on GoogleMaps the night before on Van Higgin’s cellphone.

Then, he had drugged Ava, put his sleeping son in the back of the same dead man’s fancy car, which he had retrieved from the same dead man’s tiny front yard, and drove off into the night bound for San Diego.

There were a few stops on the way, but he had made it by the next morning. Now, Tuesday afternoon, he, his son, and his stolen car were in the desert, hot sun beating down on them from up above in the cloudless blue sky.

Zach, who had finally woken and figured his way out of his carseat, sat outside of the hot car, on the ground in the shadow it cast. He watched with big green eyes as Boyd—a baseball cap on his bald head—worked.

Boyd was pouring a black powdery substance into shallow holes then burying it under the redbrown dirt. Dust clouds spread as he dug into the earth with the shovel he had purchased at a hardware store. The fireworks had been purchased less legally from a man who had brought them in from Arizona.

The boxes, and the rocket-shaped fireworks, lay in a pile on the desert ground, empty of their gunpowder.

“Watcha doing?” Zach wondered.

Boyd stopped with his shoe still on his shovel and his shovel still stuck into the packed, dusty ground. He looked up at his son.

“I thought all little boys wanted to dig a hole to china.” He tried.

 He had taken off the plaid shirt in the heat and was already getting a sunburn. A thin white tanktop (also called a ‘wifebeater’, though Boyd did not use that name given Ava and his brother’s history) was all he wore on his torso now.

“I thought we were going to Mexico.” Zach reminded, “Where’s mommy?”

“Your momma’s on her way.” Boyd assured. “She’s just got some…people coming with her.”

“Bad people?” Zach asked.

Boyd paused.

In his world, law enforcement was the enemy. It was how his father raised him and how he lived most of his adult life. But did he want his son to grow up the same way?

“‘Bad’ and ‘good’ don’t really exist.” Boyd explained, “It’s all a matter of perspective. Do you know what that word means, Zachariah? Perspective?”

Zach grinned proudly. “It means how you see things.” He had seen it on an online newspaper and asked his mother.

Boyd grinned back. “You’re a smart boy.” He started digging again. “So you should be able to understand that what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’ depends on your perspective. In the police’s perspective, I’m bad so they put me in prison. In your momma’s perspective, I’m bad so she ran away from me—“

“Do you think you’re bad?” Zach questioned.

Again, Boyd stopped.

Four years ago, when he had shot an innocent stranger in the head just for giving him a ride, he would he answered ‘yes’. Two years after that, when he was the Prison Preacher of the Prison Preacher Radio Hour, he would have said ‘no’.

…but now?

Well, here he was setting up explosives for Raylan Givens and whatever other authorities arrived—though he was doing it for what he believed was a good reason.

“…that is a question with an ever-changing answer.” Boyd said. “But the more important one is do _you_ think I’m bad, Zachariah? What is your perspective?”

Zach puffed up his cheeks, holding his breath, in deep consideration. Finally, he shrugged.

“I think you’re both.” He declared, “Bad and good. You went to prison, which is where they put bad people, but you also protected me and my mom.”

Boyd chuckled, accepting the answer. “Well, alright then. I’m inclined to agree with you.”

* * *

 

The GoogleMaps app on Van Higgin’s phone told Ava where to drive.

She took the car Boyd had left for her in the motel parkinglot. It was small and probably stolen, but Ava did not care. She had to find her son.

A journey that should have taken two hours took four.

It was afternoon by the time Ava reached the outskirts of San Diego in the small car. The city sprawled behind her, it was cleaner and less trafficked than Los Angeles had been.

The blue sky above was clear but for a few birds and clouds.

On the deserted desert road, Ava drove alone towards the state park. Van Higgins’ phone sat on the seat next to her, along with her phone, her gun, and the novel Boyd had left for her.

Suddenly blue and red lights flashed in her rearview mirror. A siren blared.

Ava tensed, gripping the steeringwheel with both hands.

Should she pull over?

Or should she drive faster?

Ava stared out the front window at the empty road head, then glanced behind her at the approaching policecar.

Sighing, she steered the small car over towards the shoulder lane of the long gray asphalt road and stopped it. The redbrown desert lay on two sides of her—the green mountains ahead and the city of San Diego behind.

Then, the copcar pulled up behind her.

Ava was waiting patiently for the police officer to step out of his vehicle and walk towards her…so she could quickly drive away. She knew Boyd had given her a stolen car!

But the officer just sat there in the front seat of his policecar.

Ava watched his silhouette in her rearview mirror. He pressed the buttons on the computer built into the car. Then, he pulled out a cellphone and made a call.

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Ava was still seatbelted in the driver’s seat of the small car Boyd had left her, with the policecar parked right behind her on the shoulder of the lonely desert road.

The sun was bright above them and the dry air was hot.

Ava cooked in the oven of the small car, turned off. The officer, who was once again sitting in his airconditioned car using the built-in computer, had taken her keys. She had hidden her gun.

Meanwhile, she knew, Boyd was setting up some kind of explosive plan and poor little Zach was witnessing it.

Ava glanced out the open window at the side mirror.

An SUV was approaching. It sped forward, past the policecar, then continued past Ava.

Its windows were tinted dark, so she could not see who was driving. It swerved in front of her so that she could not drive forward or turn back onto the road, and her little car was boxed in between the SVU, the policecar and the desert.

Then, Ava knew.

It was Raylan Givens. It had to be.

Of course Boyd had given her a stolen car. That way the police would find her and Raylan would be able to follow her to Boyd so that Boyd could have his explosive showdown.

And, as expected, Raylan Givens exited the SUV…out of the backseat!

With him came the younger marshal Ava recognized as Gutterson—what was his first name, again, Tom?  Out of the frontseat exited the older marshal, the Chief—Ava did not remember his name, either—and Rachel, whose name Ava only remembered because she was the only black female law enforcement officer Ava had ever seen in Kentucky.

They approached Ava’s open window and stared down at her through it.

Ava glared up at them, especially Raylan.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing your friends, Raylan.” She spat.

Raylan shrugged, “Had no choice. You would’ve let me rot in jail.”

“There was nothing I could do about that—“ Ava tried.

“I don’t care.” Raylan interrupted, “Where is Boyd?”

“I don’t know.” Ava lied.

She may have hated Raylan for breaking his promise and hated him even more for bringing the other marshals to catch her, but she did not hate him enough to let him get blown up by Boyd Crowder.

Raylan sighed.

He glanced past Ava’s angered face at the cellphone beside her on the passengerseat. Its screen displayed a map.

Raylan held out his hand. “Give it here.”

Groaning, Ava picked up the phone and handed it through the window to Raylan.

“You don’t understand.” She tried again, “He’s got explosives and he’ll detonate them if he sees you four. I can’t let my son get caught up that—or another shootout.”

“I can handle Boyd.” Raylan promised, looking at the phone in his hand, not at Ava.

Ava narrowed her green eyes “Oh yeah? That’s why you brought back up?”

The back up narrowed their eyes at her.

Raylan looked up. “Tim, Art and Rachel, you mean? No, they’ll just watch.”

Ava rolled her eyes, “You can kill Boyd. I don’t care. But if any one of your bullets hit my son, I’ll—“

“You’re not gonna do anything handcuffed in the back of that policecar over there.” Raylan declared, “But don’t worry. We’ll keep your son safe.”

Ava’s eyes widened. She opened the car door beside her.

Raylan slammed it closed so she could not exit.

“If you go where Boyd is, and he sees you and not me, he’s gonna start blowing stuff up.” Ava warned.

“So what do you wanna do?” Raylan asked.

“I have a plan.” Ava answered.

* * *

 

“Where’s mommy?!” Zach exclaimed. He threw the toy that had come with the Happy Meal from last night he had eaten for breakfast at Boyd.

Thanos’ gauntlet (without the stones—those came in separate meals) from Avengers: Infinity War Part Two soared through the air towards Boyd, but landed several feet away, on the packed redbrown earth. A cloud of dust rose at its impact, like a small explosion.

Boyd looked up from the hole he was digging. It was much deeper and larger than the shallow ones he had buried the gunpowder in.

“Now what was that for Zachariah?” he scolded, “Didn’t I say we need to use our words when we’re angry?”

He dropped the shovel beside him and approached the toy. He bent, picked it up, and placed it in his pocket.

“I’m confiscating this.” He told his son.

Zach’s green eyes instantly filled with tears.

“No!” He rushed towards Boyd, “Give it back!”

Boyd stared down at the boy as he reached for the toy confined by his jeans pocket.

“Is that a polite way to request something you want?” he asked.

Zach grimaced. But then he stopped yelling and reaching.

“May I have it back, _please?”_ he inquired.

He had never even seen the movie that the toy represented. It was PG:13 and his mother did not allow him to watch anything rated above PG.

Boyd sighed. He reached into his pocket.

Just as he was pulling out the toy, the sound of tires rumbling on a dirt road echoed from the mountains as a vehicle drove down it toward the desert below. Boyd and Zach looked up, turning towards the source of the sound.

A white van with green time sped towards them. Written on its side was _Border Patrol_.

“Goddammit…” Boyd muttered.

Zach snickered. “That’s a bad word.”

“I know.” Boyd acknowledged, “Go hide in the car.”

“But it’s hot—“ Zach whined.

“Now!” Boyd ordered.

Zach’s eyes widened in fear. He scurried away from Boyd to hide in Van Higgin’s fancy car in front of them.

Boyd strode forward, away from the deep hole and the shovel, past the fancy car with Zach hiding inside, and past the rows of gunpowder hidden under the redbrown surface of the desert, as lines of defense protecting the car.

He stood in the middle of the dirt road and waited for the Border Patrol van. It parked in front of him.

Raylan Givens and Ava Crowder stepped out.

Boyd blinked in surprise. Then, he smiled.

“Raylan Givens, my constant shadow.” He greeted, bear arms open, “I didn’t know you quit the US Marshals to join the Border Patrol and protect our homeland from foreign invaders.”

“I think our homeland needs more protection from you than they do from any invaders.” Raylan dismissed, adjusting his black hat.

Boyd turned his hazel eyes to Ava. “I see you’ve made your choice, Ava.”

“You can’t just kidnap our son.” Ava returned.

“Is a father not entitled to custody of his own child?” Boyd questioned. “I’m sure we can work out an arrangement—“

“Neither of you are keeping the boy.” Raylan declared. He turned to Ava, “Remember that couple you said would take him? Well, they’re gonna take him.”

“No!” Ava cried.

“It’s for the best.” Raylan stated, “You don’t really want him to live this life, do you? Running from the law, getting snatched by Boyd. He didn’t choose to be born with two criminals as his parents. Do right by your son and give him a second chance to have a real family.”

“You mean like you did by leaving your daughter?” Boyd taunted.

He started across the desert towards Raylan and Ava. Raylan rested a hand on the gun in his holster.

“Not any closer, Boyd.” He warned. Then he squinted, “You bald under that hat?”

Boyd chuckled. He removed the baseball cap from his head to reveal the lack of hair.

“We’ve all changed.” He said, “Ava’s got her long hair again, your hat’s black now, and I’m a Dodgers fan.” He held the cap up to display its team logo.

Raylan chuckled back, “You don’t even like baseball.”

“That don’t mean I don’t dream of playing catch with my son.” Boyd mused, “Out in the front lawn, white picket fence surrounding, us from the terrors beyond suburbia, maybe a little dog barking in the backyard, my wife watching from the porch swing, maybe rubbing her belly cause she’s got another one on the way.”

He looked at Ava.

Ava looked away, down at the desert ground. She had once dreamed of that, too. Still did. But it was only dreams…

“You gave up that dream a long time ago.” Raylan told Boyd, “Criminals don’t get to live the American Dream.”

“Who said anything about America?” Boyd asked, “We’re at the Mexican border—“

“Mexico _is_ in America.” Raylan corrected, “And you’re not going to make it over there.”

“I’ve forgiven you a lot of things, Raylan.” Boyd said, “You’ve shot me, put me in prison, and ruined my plans on multiple occasions. But one thing I will not forgive you for is if you take my child away from me.”

He reached behind him for the gun in his waistband.

Raylan raised his gun first and pointed it at Boyd. “Are we really gonna have to do this again, Boyd?”

Boyd raised both arms in surrender. He gazed into Raylan’s brown eyes.

“Just let me and Ava go.” He pleaded, “I promise you, we’ll work things out and raise our son right. I swear to god, Raylan—I swear to _you_ —“

“Do you really love your son so little you’d let him be raised by a couple of criminals?” Raylan asked, not lowering his gun, “The two of you can’t even go without fighting or betraying each other long enough to make a proper escape plan. You really think you’d be able to get along for eighteen plus years? Stay civil and keep away from crime? The last time you had a real job, Boyd, was at the mine and that only lasted a little over a month before you robbed it and blew it up.”

“I was forced to do that.” Boyd informed, resting his arms at his side.

“I know, but you didn’t stop.” Raylan reminded, “You’ll never stop. Your son will grow up with you as an example and end up getting shot and imprisoned—if not _killed_ doing your dirty work. Is that what you want?”

Boyd sighed, shaking his head down at his shoes.

“No, Raylan, that is not what I want.” He looked up at the lawman, “You’re right. The best thing I can do for my boy is leave him. He doesn’t know I’m his father and he can grow up in a good home calling another man daddy blissfully ignorant of his true, unfortunate parentage.”

Raylan held his breath in suspicion, slowly lowering his weapon. He knew Boyd would not give up just like that.

Boyd looked at Ava, then at Raylan again.

“I’m going to give myself up.” Boyd declared, “But in return you have to let Ava go. Zachariah deserves at least one parent, and his mother is the lesser of two evils.”

“Can’t do that.” Raylan refused.

“Then we’re gone have to shoot it out after all.” Boyd stated.

He began reaching for the gun in his waistband again. Raylan raised the gun still in hand and aimed it at Boyd.

Tension filled the air and the muscles of the two men. They stared at each other in the desert, the sun beating down on them from above.

No sound.

No birds up above. No tires on dirt. No wind blowing.

Ava watched in horror. Not again!

“This was what it was all leading up to.” Boyd said, “Ever since you shot me in Ava’s diningroom and let me live. Ever since we dug coal together—you really think that conversation in the prison visiting room was gone be the end of it?”

“I hoped it would.” Raylan replied, with a shrug. His gun was still steady, pointed at Boyd.

Boyd stared at the barrel of Raylan’s gun. “At least do me the courtesy of letting me pull my weapon, make things fair.”

“That’s not how this works.” Raylan refused, “Now either put your hands up, or, pull on me and let me put you down, once and for all.”

“You really want to kill me?” Boyd questioned.

“Honestly, no.” Raylan admitted, “And I don’t think you really want to kill me, either. Even though Ava said you planned to blow me up.”

Boyd laughed, mouth open wide. He glanced at Ava, “You told him that?”

Ava nodded. “I did. Don’t do this, Boyd. Please. No one has to die today.”

“You’re right.” Boyd conceded, laugh subsiding into a sad chuckle, “No one does.”

Then, he kicked loose dirt towards Raylan. A cloud of dust burst into the air towards Raylan’s eyes.

Squinting, eyes watery, Raylan shot blind towards the dustcloud and Boyd Crowder.

The gunshot echoed throughout the desert and the mountains and sky above.

Ava screamed, jolting in shock.

“Come on, Ava!” Boyd’s voice called to her.

She scanned the desert for him. There he was. Sprinting towards Van Higgin’s car.  

Ava gaped at him. Then at Raylan, wiping his eyes with his free hand and holding the gun in his other.

Ava pulled out her gun.

She had hidden it earlier in on the back of her neck, duct-taped behind her long blonde hair. It never would have been possible had she not grown it back out. Rachel Brook’s patdown before she let Ava get into the Border Patrol vehicle with Raylan had not included hair.

She pointed it at Raylan.

He turned towards her. “Really, Ava?”

“You gave me no choice, Raylan.” She responded.

He pointed his gun at her, but did not shoot. She backed away gun pointed at him, but did not shoot.

He watched her climb into Van Higgin’s fancy car along with Boyd. He could see the silhouette of Zach in the backseat. He could hear the engine start.

Raylan started to run after it, pointing his gun at the car.

Would he really shoot with a child in the backseat?

He had to.

Boyd had to be captured. So did Ava.

Raylan placed his finger on the trigger and shot.

* * *

 

Art, Tim and Rachel had waited patiently for Raylan to return, Boyd and Ava Crowder in handcuffs; their son Zachariah sobbing but better off in the long run.

They stopped waiting and started driving when they heard the gunshots.

“Go!” Art ordered, seatbelted in the passengerseat beside Rachel.

She slammed her shoe down on the acceleration pedal beneath it. Both hands gripped the steeringwheel without turning it as she drove the car forward down the road towards the mountain.

The rented SUV climbed the green mountain at extreme speed.

“Faster!” Tim yelled from the backseat.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Rachel shouted back, eyes still staring forward at the road ahead.

The road turned from pavement to dirt beneath the rubber tires. Turning at such an intense rate, they generated a fog of dust to surround the vehicle as it rushed up the hill.

It was just at the top of the mountain, overlooking the desert below that they saw and heard the explosion.

The deafening boom, like thunder, created its own cloud—smoke, not dust. The cloud rose, as wide as it was tall; white but opaque.

The SUV slammed to a stop.

Rachel, Art and Tim exited to stare in horror at the explosion, smoke cloud and wall of fire.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, Raylan’s eyes opened. His ears rung, he could not hear. He struggled to sit up from where he had fallen backwards onto the ground.

His vision was blurry, watery and obscured by smoke as he gazed forward. The metal remains of a car burned before him in an expanse of fire that looked as if the desert itself was alight. The flames were orange on the redbrown dirt. 

Raylan let the gun fall from his already loose fingers.

He had shot the car with Boyd, Ava and Zachariah inside.

It had exploded.

He had killed them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're not really dead, of course. 
> 
> ...of course?
> 
> Kudos? Comments?


	9. Vida era Buena

A cloud of dust stirred as the wheels of Van Higgins' car spun. It was thick and soon Raylan was unable to clearly see the vehicle as he aimed his gun at it. Unable to see that the wheels were spinning in place instead of moving the car forward, generating more and more dust.

Inside the car Boyd held the parkingbreak on while simultaneously pressing the gas pedal. He glanced behind him to where Ava and Zachariah sat, wide-eyed and afraid, in the backseat.

“Jump out!” he shouted, “Into that hole over there!” he pointed towards the deep hole he had dug into the packed earth of the desert.

The mother and son turned and saw it from the window beside them. Ava grabbed Zachariah with one arm and pushed open the car door with the other.

They two leaped out of the backseat, diving into the hole in front of them.

Boyd soon followed.

When they were all underground, tense and silent, they heard the boom.

Ava and Zach had never heard such a blast. Boyd, of course had. He knew all about explosives and explosions.

It shook them all, deafening them for several long minutes.

Zach cried and Ava held him close.

The white smoke from the explosion filled the air. The debris from the blast had not fallen into the hole, but the smoke and dust did.

The Crowder family coughed; eyes, noses and mouths full of dust and smoke.

When they could hear again, Ava spoke.

“You were planning this all along.” She said to Boyd, who sat across from her in the deep, dark hole. His bald head still looked strange to her, especially now that it was covered in a layer of redbrown dust that mimicked buzzed hair.

 “It’s the only way they’ll stop chasing us.” Boyd stated, evenly.

“Now what?” Ava asked.

“Now we get out of here while the smoke’s still covering us.” Boyd answered. “We’re going to Mexico. There’s a highway down the hill, on the other side of a river. If we can cross it we can hitch a ride to Tijuana. If not, we’ll follow it to the city.”

Ava nodded. Arms still around Zach, she stood.

* * *

 

Raylan Givens watched from the top of the hill with Art Mullen, Tim Gutterson and Rachel Brooks. The desert was burning below; its smoke had chased them up the mountains.

A fire engine and multiple firefighters attacked the blaze with several huge hoses. The last thing they needed was another California wildfire.

“They blew up…” Raylan recounted, still in shock, “…just like that.”

“We haven’t seen any bodies yet.” Tim reminded, turning to him.

“You really think there’s gonna be anything left after _this?”_ Raylan gestured down at the fire before them. His voice shook with guilt.

Tim hmmed, gazing at the white smoke and orange flames.

Art placed a hand on Raylan’s shoulder. “It was Crowder that set up those explosives. This is on him, Raylan, not you.”

Raylan just stared at the blaze.

* * *

 

Later, when the fire was lingering smoke and unrecognizable ashes, Raylan found a novel on the passenger seat of the small car Ava had driven to the Otay County Open Space Preserve. He was sitting where she had sat in the heat, the window rolled down, just thinking about her, her little boy and Boyd Crowder.

He just glanced over and there the book was, sitting next to him.

_The Friends of Eddie Coyle._

The same book he had given to Tim on his last day working in Kentucky. The same book he had read cover to cover countless times over in high school and on.

Working in the mine at nineteen, he had read it with a flashlight on his lunchbreak. It was to remind him why he was working in the mine instead of committing petty crime like his father. To remind him why he would never to turn to crime no matter how hard honest work got. To remind him never to be like his father.

Boyd had asked him if he could borrow it. Raylan had told him no and kept the book safe in his pocket all the workday. Raylan knew who Boyd’s father was. Raylan knew Boyd needed the message of staying away from crime. Raylan just believed, at the time, that he needed it more than Boyd did. 

Now, Raylan wondered…if he had let Boyd borrow that book back then, would everything still have happened the way it had during their lives?

…Or would Boyd have read it cover to cover countless times over, like Raylan had, and turned his back on his father’s criminal ways?

Raylan would never know.

 Nostalgic, he opened the novel. Inside it, between its final pages was a note.

_Fire in the Hole._

Raylan crumpled it up and put it into his jeans pocket.

He told no one.

* * *

 

Dickie Bennet was apprehended by authorities in Las Vegas, Nevada.

He had found a bag of money in a fancy car parked outside of a dead man’s tiny house in Lebec, California. He taken it, hopped into a rented U-Haul, and driven down the highway to Nevada to gamble—since he had been lucky enough to get out of prison early and avoid getting killed by Boyd Crowder, he figured he was on a winning streak.

The police found him the next morning, penniless and passed out drunk on the strip. It was not until a few hours later they realized he was an escaped inmate from Tramble Penitentiary.

Once back in custody and back in Kentucky, Dickie made a deal with the Assistant US Attorney David Vasquez. He informed that prison warden James Richland had conspired with prisoner Boyd Crowder to rob a bank in Eddyville, Kentucky, and with three additional prisoners, including Dickie Bennet himself, to recapture Boyd Crowder after he had escaped.

William ‘Sumo’ Shi, who turned himself in to police in Lebec—explaining that ‘Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson’ was actually prison guard Dillon Foley—cooperated Dickie’s story and received a similar deal in exchange for testifying against the prison warden. Dillon Foley, still masquerading as Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson, used the fake badge to exit the United States into Mexico and was never seen again. 

Warden James Richland was arrested and found guilty of aiding in the escape of inmates, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, accessory to armed robbery, and accessory to the murders of prison guard Eddy Green, escaped inmate Gunnar Swift, and the other three men Boyd Crowder killed as a result of being illegally released from prison.

He was sent to the prison he once oversaw, Tramble State, where his former prisoner—now fellow inmates—were eager to welcome him.

Dickie Bennet and Sumo Shi were sent to a minimum security prison to serve the remainder of their shortened sentences as per their deals. Dickie started his own church which Sumo reluctantly joined for protection.

* * *

 

The murder of Van Higgins was never solved.

The medical examiner determined, via post-mortem bruising that appeared hours after the body was found, that the man was not actually hit by a car, but instead beaten to death—most likely by a blunt, metal object like a crowbar.

…or a tire iron.

* * *

 

Zachariah acted as the translator Tijuana. He had his parents had stayed the night in a hotel on the outskirts of the city.

Without the bags of money (stolen from the Eddyville bank and withdrawn from the Lebec bank), Boyd had robbed several tourists for their pocket change, cellphones and other valuables, to be able to afford the hotel stay and food. So much for giving up his life of crime.

Ava had taken Zach down the street so he would not witness this.

Now, this Wednesday afternoon, they sat in a small but busy Mexican restaurant (—was it even a _‘Mexican’_ restaurant if it was in Mexico? Or was it just a restaurant?). The family of three sat at a red-clothed table by the window, listening to the mariachi music playing in the background from the speakers on the ceiling.

Outside, they could see the passersby; locals and tourists walking on the palmtree-lined sidewalks. A tall white arch with crisscross wiring that looked like a spider web rose from the city streets with the same curve as the mountains in the distance rose from the ground.

Ava crunched one tortillachip after another from the basket in the center of the small wooden table. She knew better than to eat all those carbohydrates, but she ate them anyway as she watched her son Zach play with his Happy Meal toy.

Zach sat between Ava and Boyd, across from the window where signs in Spanish and English advertised the restaurant’s special today as well as the alcoholic beverage’s menu.

Boyd was watching the window beside him. He had not touched a single chip. He was waiting until he saw someone he recognized.

“How do you know he’ll even show up?” Ava asked him from across the table.

“I don’t.” Boyd admitted, still staring out the window at the bustling street of cars and pedestrians outside, “But money is a powerful magnet. It’s hard to resist its pull.”

“You don’t have much to pay him.” Ava reminded. The amount he had stolen, even after selling the cellphones, jewelry and watches, had only amounted to less than a thousand pesos—even less in US dollars.

“I will.” Boyd declared.

Ava sighed and looked out the window. She already knew what Boyd planned to do.

Behind her, the restaurant was almost empty in that lazy hour in between the breakfast and lunch rushes. An old man sat alone at the bar. Four hungover American tourists ate and drank in a back booth, right by the swinging door to the kitchen.

It opened and out came the red-uniformed waitress holding a tray of food. She crossed the wooden floor of the small restaurant to place the steaming ceramic plates in front of the American family.

Zach had ordered cheese quesadillas. Ava had ordered chicken fajitas. Boyd had ordered a beer because he did not like Mexican food.

“Gracias!” Zach grinned up at the waitress. He glanced at his plate of quesadillas; four sections of a grilled tortilla filled with cheese…but not nearly enough sourcream, “Puede darme mas crema, por favor?”

Waitress grinned back. The little gringo boy speaking Spanish was cute.

“Si.” She replied in Spanish, then tried her English, “Of course. Right away.” She smiled at the little boy again, then returned with the metal tray to the kitchen to retrieve more sourcream.

Ava chuckled and tussled Zach’s brown hair. She was proud of him for learning a second language, especially now that they needed it.

“Put your toy away so you can eat.” She instructed, picking up the miniature Infinity Gauntlet from the table and placing it in her lap.

Zach pouted, crossing his arms. “But I don’t have enough sourcream yet.”

“Just eat what you have.” Ava said, “She’ll be out with the rest by the time you need it.”

She picked up the folded paper napkin next to her son’s plate, unfolded it, and tucked it into his buttoned up shirt. Zach squirmed as his mother forced the napkin into his collar.

None of them had had a chance to change clothes since they left the United States. Ava was still in her shorts and t-shirt, Boyd was still in his jeans and tanktop (and still bald), and Zach was still in the buttondown and khakis he had been sent to Rosa and Luis’ ranch wearing.

Zach lifted a section of quesadilla off of his plate. Melted cheese oozed out, falling as the quesadilla rose towards his mouth. Some of it landed on the napkin Ava had tucked into his collar.

“Careful, it’s hot.” Ava warned as Zach took his first bite, “And don’t forget to chew. Whoa, that bite’s too big! You’ll choke!” She reached towards the quesadilla in Zach’s hands.

Boyd groaned, finally turning away from the window. “Goddammit, Ava, is it like this every time you two sit down for a meal?”

“Watch your mouth.” Ava warned Boyd, glaring across the table at him.

Zach was already snickering at the use of the expletive. He had stopped chewing to do this and the partially chewed tortilla was visible in his partially open mouth.

“Chew with your mouth closed.” Ava told to Zach. “Here, let me cut it for you.”

Zach closed his mouth and resumed chewing while Ava lowered his arms so the bitten quesadilla returned to his plate. Then, she picked up the fork and knife next to her plate.

Zach grimaced, but allowed his mother to cut his quesadilla, already dived into four sections. His fingers were greasy with cheese.

Boyd rolled his hazel eyes at this. “You’re coddling him. He’ll never grow up to be man if you—“

“Zachariah is four years old.” Ava interrupted to remind.

“Four and three quarters.” Zach corrected her.

“When I was four years old—“ Boyd began.

“Four and three quarters.” Zach corrected him.

Boyd took a breath. He nodded at Zach, then turned to Ava and resumed “When I was four and three quarters I was already cutting up the deer my daddy shot so my momma could cook it for venison. By the time I was five I was shooting the deer myself.”

Now, Ava rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and when you were ten you fought a mountain lion with your bare hands and won.”

“Maybe I did.” Boyd stated. He picked up his tall glass of beer and took a sip of the amber-colored liquid.

“It’s eleven in the morning, Boyd.” Ava informed, “You shouldn’t even be drinking that in front of the boy.”

“And _you_ shouldn’t be arguing with me in front of him.” Boyd returned, “When did you become such an uptight—“

At that point, Waitress returned with Zach’s extra sourcream in a tiny plastic cup. She placed it on the red tablecloth next to his plate.

“Thank you!” Zach thanked her, this time in English.

“Comer con gusto.” She accepted, this time in Spanish.

Both Ava and Boyd smiled at Waitress politely until she turned and walked away, back into the kitchen behind the swinging door. Then, Ava face Boyd.

“I can’t have you undermining my authority with him.” She hissed. “I’ve been doing this for almost five years. _Alone_ —“

“And why is that, again, Ava?” Boyd snorted, “Have you already forgotten during these ‘almost five years’ the reason you been ‘doing it alone’? Because I sure as hell haven’t.”

“Boyd!” Ava cried. “Didn’t I just say no cursing?”

Meanwhile, Zach dipped his quesadilla pieces—cut by Ava—into his sourcream. He listened to the adults argue, quietly, pretending like he did not notice.

It was the most interesting thing since the explosion yesterday afternoon.

“It’s just a word.” Boyd shrugged, sipping his beer again.

“Just a word?” Ava tested, raising a blonde eyebrow “You of all people know how powerful words can be and I know you have a large enough vocabulary that you don’t need to curse in front of a four year old boy.”

“Four and three quarters.” Zach reminded, for the third time.

Ava turned to him, face pink in embarrassment. “Honey, the grownups are talking.”

Boyd chuckled, shaking his head down at the glass in his hand as he set it back down on the table.

“Why don’t you eat your fajitas, Ava?” he suggested, “They’re getting cold.”

He gestured at the metal plate of shredded chicken in front of her. It was still steaming.

Ava gritted her teeth. She picked up her fork.

Zach dropped a piece of quesadilla. It fell from his fingers, slippery with grease, onto the hardwood floor below.

“Goddammit!” he cursed.

Ava gasped at him, “Zachariah! Don’t you ever say that word! It’s a bad word!”

Zach grinned, sheepishly. “Sorry, mommy…” He was not sorry. 

Ava then turned to Boyd. “See what you’ve done!”

Boyd held up both hands. “If you react that way he’s just gone wanna say it more.”

Zach leaned down sideways to lift the fallen piece of quesadilla off the floor. Ava jolted.

“Leave it, honey.” She said, pushing his shoulder so that he sat upright in his wooden chair again, “You can’t eat that. It’s got germs.”

“Jesus Christ.” Boyd groaned, clutching his forehead with one hand. He used his free hand to pick back up his glass of beer and take a long gulp.

He turned to stare out the window next to him again.

Finally!

A chubby, tan skinned man in a poloshirt and shorts was approaching the restaurant. He crossed the street full of cars and then the sidewalk full of pedestrians.

Corey Flores.

The Crowe’s smuggling contact in Mexico.

But who was the curvy, tan skinned _woman_ in leggings and a croptop walking next to him?

Corey opened the door to the restaurant, its bell ringing to signify a customer’s entrance. Instantly, the waitress emerged from the kitchen again, hurrying over to greet them.

Corey pointed at the table by the window where Boyd, Ava and Zach sat. Waitress nodded and let Corey and the woman walk past her, over to the table.

Boyd stood before they could reach it, standing between them and his family.

He smiled, extending a hand to shake.

“Didn’t you used to have hair?” Corey questioned, brow furrowed. He had almost not recognized Boyd.

“I like the bald look on men.” The woman commented, flipping her long black hair back.

"You like the _pale_ look on men." Corey corrected, under his breath. 

Boyd smirked “Nice to see you again, Senor Flores.” He then, turned to the woman, “And who is this pretty young lady that feels the need to flatter me?”  

“My sister.” Corey stated, flatly. “Carrie.”

Boyd’s eyes widened in surprise. “…oh.” He remembered what Danny Crowe had told him he and his brother Daryl had done with Corey’s sister.

Carrie rolled her brown eyes. “Dios mio, I have one fun night and everyone in the world has to hear about it.”

“You’ve had more than one.” Corey muttered, rolling his eyes. He knew his sister flirted with the Americans just to piss him and their father off. 

Carrie elbowed him in the gut. He winced in pain.

“You wouldn’t have had a threesome with two gringas?” she scoffed, “One blonde, one brunette—“

“Enough!” Corey snapped at her.

Boyd was laughing. Ava and Zach watched curiously from the table behind him, unable to hear the topic of conversation.

 “Carrie, I hate to be the one to inform you that your past lovers are dead.” Boyd said, “Danny Crowe was killed by his own knife, Darryl by his own sister.”

Corey blinked in surprise. “That explains why I never heard from them.”

“I never expected to hear from them again.” Carrie shrugged.

Corey groaned, “Why are we wasting time talking about this? We came a long way from Valle Hermosa—“

“And I know you didn’t come all this way just to tell me you came all this way.” Boyd cut him off to reply, “You came for my money, so I need to get what _I_ came here for so I can give you what _you_ came here for.”

Corey turned to Carrie. Carrie reached into the purse draped by her hip, pulling out three passports.

“They’re complete, except for the photos.” She informed Boyd, “I have my camera with me. I’ll need to take your pictures but we have to find a place with a white background.”

Boyd nodded. “The hotelroom should do.”

“Now where’s my money?” Corey demanded.

“You’ll get it.” Boyd assured, then adding, “…there’s just one more thing you’ll need to help me do.”

“Oh and what is that?” Corey inquired, narrowing his eyes skeptically.

“Rob a bank.” Boyd declared.

* * *

 

Ava was smoking on the concrete balcony of the hotelroom, leaning on the railing, gazing out at the bright lights of the city and the dark night, cigarette between two thin fingers. She sliding glass door behind her was shut (but not locked) so that the smoke and the noise from the city outside did not travel into the room and wake her son.

Zachariah was sleeping in one of the two beds inside. The lights were off.

It was after nine o’clock at night.

Ava wore the nightgown she had bought with the money Boyd had stolen from the tourists. She had bought all three of them new clothes.

Ava did not hear the hotelroom door open, but she did hear the glass door slide. She spun around, instantly, dropping the cigarette over the ledge. It fell, its trail of smoke rising in the opposite direction.

Boyd smirked at her from the doorway. His bald head reflected the city lights.

“He doesn’t smell it on you?” he chuckled.

Ava grimaced, glancing past Boyd, through the glass, at the sleeping Zach, tucked into the kingsized bed that made him look ever smaller than he already was.

On the carpeted floor inside a new bag of stolen money had been dropped.

“I just tell him I burned something while cooking.” She explained, “I quit before, while I was pregnant, not even a single puff after I knew for sure. But then it was just so… _hard_ ….”

“I know.” Boyd sympathized, though he had never been addicted to nicotine himself.

Ava shook her head down at her slippers, blonde hair shaking, too. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean it was hard. I was all alone, far from home and everything I knew, everything I grew up with. I had to start over from scratch and I had this baby with me and I didn’t know what to do.”

Boyd closed the slidingdoor behind him and stepped onto the concrete balcony.

 “I know.” He repeated.  

He placed a comforting hand on Ava’s shoulder. She shivered despite the heat, but did not shake off the touch.

“Nobody held my hair up when I was vomiting from morning sickness.” Ava recounted, “Nobody held my hand when I screaming out in pain giving birth. I was alone, Boyd, and I know that was my fault—my choice, but you should’ve never put me in the position to make that choice—“

Starting to shout, she was interrupted by Boyd grabbing both sides of her arms and looking her straight in the eyes.

“I’m here now.” He told her. “I’ve forgiven you for doing what you had to do and now you need to forgive me for doing what I had to do—what I still have to do—in order to protect and provide for you and Zachariah. And if you can’t do that, Ava, you’d best push me off this balcony right now because I ain’t gone fight with you anymore.”

He let go of her to stand with his back to the metal railing, arms up towards the moon and the stars in the sky. Ava turned to face him.

“I don’t wanna fight anymore, either.” She sighed.

Boyd smiled. He lowered his arms, but kept them outstretched, offering an embrace. Ava stepped forward into it, closing her green eyes.

“You’ll never be alone again.” He promised, stroking her back.

* * *

 

Thursday morning was Zach’s first time on an airplane. He cried as his ears popped during the plane’s ascension from the Mexican ground into the sky. He sat buckled between Ava and Boyd, Ava leaning over to comfort him, on the navyblue cushioned seats.

The three sat in the middle of the crowded airplane where there were rows of three. The seatbelt lights on the offwhite ceiling above them glowed as flight attendants wearing navyblue uniforms settled into their seats up front by the bathroom and cockpit.

The pilot’s voice stated something in Spanish through the speakers overhead. Somewhere behind them, another child was crying, so at least Zach was not the only one.

After a few long minutes of tears and pain, the plane and air pressure evened out and the passengers’ ears stopped popping. The seatbelt light turned off and the flight attendants rose from their seats.

Zach wiped his reddened, wet eyes and sniffed.

“Mommy, why does it hurt?” he asked his mother.

“Because the pressure changes.” Ava explained, “Imagine there are a bunch of little dots in the air, so small that you can’t see them, and your ears have a hundred of them inside when you’re on the ground. But when you go up in the sky, there are less little dots and now your ears only have fifty little dots inside, and they’re ache because they’re used to having more.”

Of course that was not exactly the correct explanation, but it was something a four year old—no, four and three quarters—would understand.

Zach grimaced, unsatisfied.

“But why does it have to hurt just because there’s less?” He pressed.

“Because it’s hard to go from having more to having less.” Ava said, “It’s hard to deal with change.” Now, she was talking about more than the air pressure. “But does it hurt anymore?”

Zach shook his head. “No.”

“See, that’s because your ears got used to it.” Ava smiled.

Boyd listened as Ava spoke to Zach. He decided she was a good mother after all, despite being overbearing when it came to eating and cursing.

He glanced at them, then at the flight attendants at the front of the plane. One was preparing the gray metal cart to push down the aisle and offer the passengers refreshments.

Boyd unbuckled his seatbelt so that he could reach into the pocket of the tan pants Ava had purchased him along with the shortsleeved buttondown.

He did not like the color, but he had already vetoed shorts and they were supposed to look like tourists—not a family consisting of two criminals and an unlucky child who had faked their own deaths in the US and fled to Mexico. Ava wore a pink floral patterned dress, and Zach wore shorts and Yo Heart Tijuana t-shirt.

He pulled out a few pesos, obtained from yesterday’s bank robbery. He had given half to Corey Flores, and kept the other half for himself, putting most of that into a prepaid debitcard because there was a ten thousand limit on how much cash allowed onto an airplane.

The dark-haired flight attendant pushed the cart forward. It was two rows away.

Boyd turned to Ava and Zach.

“Zachariah, I’m gone need you to translate when she gets here.” Boyd told Zach, “You up to it?”

Zach turned to him, smiled and nodded. He unbuckled his seatbelt after a few moments of struggling (during which Ava let him figure it out on his own) then slide out of his sea.

Boyd was surprised when his son jumped onto his lap. Zach still did not know Boyd was his father. Boyd was also surprised Ava allowed this and even smiled.

She watched Boyd chuckle and adjust his legs so both he and Zach were more comfortable. The two looked up as the flight attendant and her cart arrived.

When they had their drinks, Zach returned to his seat and pulled down the tray on the back of the seat in front of him so that he could set down the tiny plastic cup. Ava and Boyd did the same.

The television screens built into the ceiling blinked on. The inflight movie was about to begin.

It was something family friendly, so Boyd had purchased earbuds for Zach. Ava had refused them for herself; he had already seen Toy Story Four too many times in the two years since it had premiered.

She switched seats with Zach so that he could get a better view of the screen from her aisle seat while she chatted with Boyd, who considered himself too cool and manly to be interested in an animated movie about talking toys.

Earbuds in his once aching ears, Zach focused his green eyes on the screen above. It was the quietest and stillest Boyd had ever seen him (except for when he was sleeping) in the few days he had known the toddler.

“The wonders of technology.” He commented.

“You should see him with a tablet.” Ava laughed.

Boyd rested his head back against the seat. “There’s so much about him I don’t know…so much I need to catch up on…”

“There’ll be time.” Ava promised, glancing at Zach and then looking at Boyd, “But we’ll have to take this slow. There’re a lot of changes in his life now. He’s left the only home he’s every known and everybody he knew behind, except his momma, to live in a new country with a strange man whose voice he only ever heard before on the radio.”

“He’s a kid.” Boyd reminded, “They’re resilient. They handle these situations better than adults do.”

 “I know.” Ava accepted, “I just wanna be careful.”

Boyd nodded. “I understand.”

Ava picked up her plastic cup of orange juice and took a sip. “So how’d you manage to get out of prison, anyway?”

She was not worried about anyone overhearing. Everyone else in the airplane was speaking Spanish.

Boyd chuckled, closing his eyes briefly to visualize the memory. “I made a deal with the warden to rob a bank for him.”

A burst of laughter erupted from Ava’s lips. She immediately covered her mouth with one hand.

“Seriously, Boyd?” She snorted, “Only you could convince a prison warden to do a thing like that.”

Boyd opened his hazel eyes to gaze at her. “I don’t know about that, Ava, you’re pretty persuasive yourself. Who did you convince to help you get out of Harlan four years ago?”

“Winn Duffy, of all people.” Ava informed, “I gave him half the money.”

“Where’d he run off to?” Boyd inquired.

Ava shrugged. “We decided it was best neither of us knew where the other went, in case one of us got caught one day…he asked me to come with him, though.”

Boyd raised his brown eyebrows in surprise. “Really? I didn’t think he liked…blondes.”

Ava smirked.

“I think he was just lonely.” She recounted, “He said his bodyguard, Mikey, got killed.”

“If you had gone with him, Raylan wouldn’t have found you, I wouldn’t have found you and we wouldn’t be here right now.” Boyd noted, “I bet Duffy was smart enough to leave the country the first time.”

“Duffy wasn’t carrying in a baby in his belly.” Ava dismissed, sharply, “You’re not supposed to fly while pregnant.”

Boyd smiled in surrender, “I didn’t mean it like that, Ava. I mean, I’m glad you didn’t go and that we’re here right now. If Raylan hadn’t found you I never would have known I had a son.”

Ava’s expression softened, but then turned to sadness. “…I feel bad about Raylan thinking he killed us—killed Zachariah. I know he’s killed a lot of people, but killing a little boy would weigh heavy on him.”

Boyd sighed. “I know, Ava, I feel the same way, but there was no other choice.”

“Do you think he’ll figure it out?” Ava wondered.

“Maybe.” Boyd mused, “Should we send him a postcard once we land in Costa Rica?”

He chuckled, so did Ava. She leaned against his shoulder and he leaned his bald head against the top of her long blonde hair.

“Maybe one from a different country.” Ava suggested, “So he’d known we’re alive but not where we really are, and send him in the wrong direction if he decided to start looking for us again.”

"I almost wish he would." Boyd said. "...just not until Zachariah's grown."

"Or your hair's grown back, at least." Ava added, reaching one hand up to rub the top of Boyd's bald head. 

They laughed again.

Life was good.

For now.


	10. An Atheist and a US Marshal Meet Again

**40 Years Later**

Self-driving cars populated the bustling streets of Miami, Florida. But in Harlan County, Kentucky, everyone lived their lives in a walking time capsule, decades behind the rest of the good old United States.

Eighty-four year old Raylan Givens did not mind. He never trusted self-driving vehicles, and even though his eyesight was not what it used to be (and neither was his mind, or his trigger finger, if he admitted it), he took a flight from Miami to Lexington, then rented a car and drove himself down to Harlan.

It was strange returning to his old home after over forty years away. The last time he had been in Kentucky was for his former chief Art Mullen’s funeral, and even then that was in Lexington near the retirement community Art and his wife Leslie had moved to in their final years.

Raylan’s old home looked the same, at first. Same hills, rising and falling like little ripples on the water. Same trees bright red, orange, and golden because it was autumn.

But changed had crept its way into Harlan.

The mines were all-but empty and so were most of the abandoned neighborhoods and trailerparks. What did remain had been updated.

Wrinkled hands steady on the wheel of the rented old towncar, Raylan glanced to his side out the opened window. Wind blew his slicked back hair, white like his father’s had turned in his old age.

There was a stripmall where Mags Bennett’s store used to be. 7-11, Dunkin Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, Domino’s Pizza, a liquor store—Harlan was not a dry county anymore.

Raylan stopped at the combined Dunkin Donuts and Baskin-Robbins and ordered a vanilla cone.

After he had finished his icecream at the tiny plastic round table inside, he returned to his parked car and backed it out of the lot in front of the stripmall.

Back on the road, Raylan returned his brown eyes to the front window ahead. He still had a ways to go.

Later down the winding country road, trees had been chopped down and houses had been bulldozed. Tenement housing had been constructed in their places.

It was where the migrant workers who labored on the marijuana plantations lived. Nearby were other stripmalls, with little Mexican grocery stores and El Salvadorian restaurants.

There was new smoke in Harlan. Marijuana had replaced coal.

It made Raylan wonder how Loretta was doing. She would be in her fifties now. They used to keep in touch, but the last time he had heard from her was thirty-some years ago when she said she was leaving Harlan. She had not said where she was going.

Deeper into the county, things started to look more familiar.

Nobles Holler had hardly changed. Still small and still poor.

With the legalization of marijuana and other formerly illegal drugs in the United States, there was no more need for a secret bank in the bellies of pigs. What many poor men had spent their lives in prison for using and selling, rich men now became richer because of.

(Thankfully, the US inserted itself into another foreign war, this time in West Africa instead of the Middle East, so that the poor men, out of prison because of legalized drugs and out of work because the marijuana plantations did not hire locals, had something to do with their free time.)

Once out of Nobles Holler, and almost to his destination, Raylan made the mistake of switching on the rental car’s radio. The country station buzzed into his ears—the _rap_ portion of the country song.

Every new country, pop and rock song had a rap verse and every rap and hip-hop song had a white rapper.  Rap and hip-hop had gone the way of rock-and-roll, and the cool urban youths listened to some new genre of music Raylan had never heard of but his grandchildren probably loved.

He pushed the button to turn off the radio.

He was almost to his destination, anyway.

* * *

 

Audrey’s, the former brothel, was now Audrey’s Family Restaurant.

Years ago, the government had seized the property and later sold it to a developer, who restored it and turned it into a down home style American diner with quaint checkered tablecloths and a big tapestry map of the United States on one wooden wall, a big US flag on the other wooden wall, and photographs on historic US landmarks on the other two walls.

It could have been anywhere in the country—or in the world as a typical American restaurant—how generic it was. There was nothing Harlan County about it.

…but a few miles away, at Johnny’s Bar, one could get a drink and feel like they were drinking authentic moonshine even though it was poured from a brandname bottle.

That was where Raylan Givens had been asked to come in the email.

Nobody even used email anymore, so Raylan was surprised to see the months old attempt at contact when, out of the boredom of retirement, he checked his old government email address from back when he was Deputy US Marshal.

_Meet me at Johnny’s Bar. I’d like to talk._

Raylan did not recognize the email addressed but he still replied, anyway.

_I’ll be there._

Then, he booked a flight online from his tabletphone and was on his way. His daughter picked him up at his suburban house because his wife no longer drove and then dropped him off at the airport.

Now, Raylan Givens stood in the open doorway to Johnny’s Bar. The interior of the building looked like it had not changed in forty years—because it had not. The jukebox was still against the wall playing music only people Raylan’s age would recognize, the pool table was still in the darkened back section, the glowing red face of a bull was still on the pillar by the white block bar.

Raylan glanced at the mostly empty wood tables and chairs in the center of the room. Two marijuana plantation workers chatted in Spanish while drinking tequila.

Raylan turned to the bar and the barstools. An elderly bald man sat alone in the corner of the bar.

He looked up when he heard someone enter the establishment. Raylan narrowed his brown eyes to examine the fellow old man’s wrinkled face. He looked familiar…

Raylan felt a tap on his shoulder.

He jolted, spinning around to face whoever had touched him without warning. One wrinkle hand moving to the gun he still kept in the holster on his belt.

A young—well, young to eighty-something year old Raylan, anyway—man in his forties smiled at him. 

His brown hair was shaggy around his shoulders, though his hairline was starting to recede, increasing the size of his forehead. He wore a baggy leatherjacket and cuffed bluejeans because it was the fifties, again, but his loose shirt was paisley patterned like a hippie’s.

Fashions were forever cycling. But Raylan dressed like he always had. Just because he had gotten old did not mean he had to start wearing sweatervests. He wore a black buttondown and an old jeansjacket he had owned for decades. Denim was no longer made as durable, anymore.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” The younger man apologized to the older.

He had an accent similar to the migrant workers speaking Spanish at the nearby table, though not exactly the same. His green eyes glanced at the old man’s hand resting on his holstered gun.

Raylan untensed, smiling in embarrassment. He had not heard the man’s footsteps behind him.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to come up behind a man like that?” The question was playful rather than chastising as Raylan took his hand off his gun.

“You’re Raylan Givens.” The man guessed, still smiling.

Raylan furrowed his wrinkled forehead. “You must be the one who emailed me. Do I know you?”

“Yes, you do.” The man grinned, “You just don’t recognize me. The last time you saw me, you were in my mother’s backyard. The last time I saw you I was hiding in the back of a car.”

Raylan’s brown eyes widened. “Zachariah Crowder?” he gasped, “Well, I’ll be damned…”

The man had Boyd’s hair color and tall, skinny build but Ava’s eye color and her finer facial features, too. Raylan never would have recognized him as their son if he had not identified himself; his very aura was so opposite that of his parents.

“Actually, I haven’t gone by Zachariah in years.” The man informed, matter-of-factly, “Biblical names aren’t exactly my thing…You can call me Rai, like Catcher in the Rye.”

Raylan sniffed. He had never liked that book, and he thought the nickname ‘Rai’ was as silly as when Willa called herself ‘LaLa’ for a few months when she was six years old.

Still, Raylan made no comment.

“Rai.” He allowed, “How did you and your parents—“

“Survive the explosion?” Zachariah completed, “We jumped out of the car into a hole my father dug earlier, he planned the whole thing, faking our deaths…it’s one of my earliest memories, I don’t remember much else from back then, before we moved to Costa Rica.”

Raylan shook his head, still chuckling. “Fire in the hole…” he repeated, remember Boyd Crowder’s catch phrase.

“Well, technically, the fire wasn’t in the hole.” Zachariah corrected, “Otherwise, we would’ve died.” He smirked.

“You’re all grown up.” Raylan commented, looking at the man up and down.

He was surprised to see that Zachariah’s paisley buttondown was unbuttoned at the top, three buttons, to reveal the necklace he wore. Raylan recognized it as Ava Crowder’s silver pendant.

For a moment, Raylan wondered if Zachariah was gay. It would have been funny to see Boyd’s reaction to that. Ava would have probably been tolerant, maybe not accepting but definitely tolerant, but Boyd…Boyd would have been furious. He would have come around eventually, though.

Raylan snickered to himself at the thought. Zachariah raised an eyebrow.

“Why don’t we have a seat and have the conversation we came all this way to have.” He invited, gesturing to an empty table, “You must be tired from your journey.”

“Alright.” Raylan accepted.

He moved towards the closest chair but the younger man was quicker. He pulled it out politely for the older man and allowed him to sit first before sitting down across from him at the wooden table.

Raylan watched as the man turned to the pretty blonde bartender behind the bar.

“Cranberry juice for me, bourbon for my friend.” Zachariah requested, then glancing back at Raylan, “Bourbon, right?”

Raylan nodded.

Zachariah smiled, “I thought so.”

They waited in silence for their drinks.

It was strange having a live human employee take their order after so long, Raylan thought to himself.

Many restaurants had phased out hostesses, servers and bartenders. Customers would seat themselves and order using a touchscreen computer built into the table or their tabletphones.

A few minutes later the blonde bartender set the glasses in front of them on the table, smiled and then returned to her station behind the bar.

Raylan eyed the red liquid in the younger man’s glass.

“You don’t drink?” he asked.

Zachariah shook his head, “No. Don’t smoke, either. My mother was addicted to both, you know. Never wanted to end up like that.”

“Ava.” Raylan named, “How’s she doing?”

Zachariah grimaced in attempt to smile. “She’s, well, dead. My father too.”

Raylan blinked in surprise. Then, he sighed, sadly.

“Zachariah, I’m sorry…”

“Rai.” Zachariah corrected, “And it’s okay. I mean, I was prepared for it. With dad, it was long decline. Progressive Pulmonary Fibrosis, Bronchitis…”

“Black Lung.” Raylan identified.

Zachariah nodded. “It was just coughing at first. Then, it got worse and worse until…well, you know.”

“And Ava?” Raylan inquired.

“Lung Cancer.” Zachariah answered, “It was quick. They caught it too late. She was so busy tending to dad, she didn’t pay attention to her own health. There wasn’t time for treatment and when she passes, dad just gave up and died, too. It was quick for him, as well, after she was gone.”

Raylan swallowed his saliva. Then, he lifted his glass of bourbon, took a long sip, and swallowed that too.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated.

Zachariah chuckled now. Half bitterly, half lightly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I told you.” He repeated back, “I wasn’t…close with them, anyway. Only came back cause mom got sick, dad had been sick for years. She died, then he died, and I found myself holding two funerals in two months. It was more surreal than sad.”

“When was this?” Raylan questioned.

“Four months ago.” Zachariah stated, “I would’ve invited you, but I didn’t find your information til I was logging into my parents’ old emails to settle their affairs.” He laughed, “I knew they were on the run from the law, but I never realized just how many crimes had caused them to go.”

“Yes.” Raylan acknowledged, laughing as well, “Your parents were prolific, especially your father.”

Now, Zachariah sighed, “Oh, I know now…and I had a feeling about it, growing up, too. Dad preached in Costa Rica, for a while, but we kept moving around. We ended up in Nicaragua. He told everyone there we were American missionaries. He started a church and grew a flock—even though half of them couldn’t understand what he was shouting about.”

“They just liked the way he was shouting it.” Raylan agreed. He knew Boyd’s way with words, even if those words were in a different language than the one spoken by those listening.

“Mom opened a school.” Zachariah said, “She taught English to the kids. Eventually, it became an orphanage, too. Those kids _worshipped_ my dad, called him ‘padre’—like father, but also like priest. He might as well have been god; they did whatever he told them to, just because he smiled at them and patted them on the heads. I used to worship him, too…until I finally understood what kind of man he was.”

“I understand.” Raylan empathized.

There was once a time when he had respected his father, Arlo Givens, too. Back when he was a little boy, before he recognized the smell he associated with his father as liquor and stayed up late enough to watch his father beat his mother. She had not died of old age.

“Everyone in town believed the money they used to build the church, the school and the orphanage was from donations, but…” Zachariah added.

“…it was really from robbing banks.” Raylan guessed.

“No one ever suspects the preacher.” Zachariah confirmed, “Dad would drive to another county—another country, even, sometimes—somewhere where the banks catered to tourists and wealthy locals and carried American dollars or Euros. Yuan, too, when the Chinese stopped keeping its value low.”

It made sense. The more the individual bills were worth, the less of it Boyd would have to steal at one time.

“Dad had to stop when he got sick.” Zachariah continued, “He was about sixty, he was coughing all the time, always out of breath. He had the boys who grew up in his orphanage do it for him once they were teenagers.”

Raylan shook his head in disgust. But he was not at all surprised that Boyd started a new gang and continued committing crimes. He was, however, surprised that Ava had let Zachariah witness this.

“Ava, your mother, she let you grow up around all that?” Raylan checked.

“They kept it secret from me for a long time.” Zachariah stated, “Lied to me like I was part of the congregation. I found out when I was eleven. That was the day I stopped believing in god—and my parents.”

Raylan exhaled sympathetically. “They were trying to protect you.”

He had always wished he had never known about his father’s crimes. Everybody wanted the opposite of what they had, apparently.

“I know.” Zachariah acknowledged, “But I still got out of there as soon as I turned eighteen. For a long time I hated them, both my father and my mother.”

“That explains the shirt.” Raylan noted, gestured to the unbuttoned top three buttons of Zachariah’s paisley shirt, “…but not the necklace.”

Zachariah smiled bashfully down at his cranberry juice.

“We all rebel against our fathers, don’t we?” he said, “Our mothers are easier to forgive.” He looked back up at Raylan, “Where’s your hat?”

“I gave it to my daughter.” Raylan responded, scratched his white hair where the black hat would have sat, “Never looked quite right on her, but it suits my grandson.”

“You have grandchildren?” Zachariah smiled, “How many?”

“Two.” Raylan said, “A boy and girl—more, if you count the boys my wife’s son with her third husband had. We’re one big happy blended family.”

Winona had only remarried Raylan after Richard had died—and Raylan had finally retired from the Marshal Service. Still, once Raylan was finally stable, Winona missed the thrill that drew her to him.

“My parents would’ve liked grandchildren.” Zachariah said, “If I ever have kids, they’ll never meet them. Though they had more than enough little ones to chase in their twilight years with the orphanage.”

“You married?” Raylan asked.

Zachariah shook his head, his shaggy brown hair shaking with it. “It’s 2059, who gets married anymore?”

Raylan laughed too. His daughter had never married, either. Her younger brother had, though.

“You know, I used to have nightmares of you showing up in Miami sent to kill me by your father,” Raylan recounted, “instead, you fall in love with my little girl, even though she’s a year older, and the two of you run off.”

Zachariah snorted. “I thought you thought my parents and I died in the explosion.”

“I did…usually.” Raylan admitted, “But every so often I would think ‘what if’…”

He took another sip of bourbon, the glass was almost empty. Zachariah matched the movement, sipping his cranberry juice.

“How’d you find out about this place?” Raylan asked.

“Dad liked to tell stories.” Zachariah answered, with a shrug, “You were in them, too.”  

Raylan raised a white eyebrow, “Really? The villain deadest on ruining his day, I assume.”

“There were no good guys and bad guys in dad’s stories.” Zachariah said, “Just marshals and outlaws. On the nights he wasn’t busy, he’d gather the orphanage kids before bedtime and tell one of the tales of the gallant man in the hat—so, of course I’m disappointed that you don’t have it anymore.”

Raylan stroked his uncovered head again, chuckling. “I was getting too old for it.”

“You still have your gun, though.” Zachariah noted, pointing under the table at Raylan’s holster, “I can’t believe you can just carry those around here.” He laughed, “You can’t do that where I live.”

“Where is that?” Raylan asked.

“England.” Zachariah stated, “I moved there for university and never went back—well, until my mom got sick.”

“Ava must’ve missed you.” Raylan mused.

“I know she did, so it meant even more to me that she was the one who helped me get out.” Zachariah said, “She got the documents I needed to emigrate and gave me enough money to start over. She wanted me to have a better life.”

“How did Boyd take it?” Raylan wondered.

“I don’t know.” Zachariah admitted, “I didn’t speak to him for almost four years. I’m sure he was mad, but when we finally talked he was calm and friendly on the phone like I’d only been away for a weekend.”

Raylan chuckled. “That’s just like him.”

Zachariah noticed the empty glass in Raylan’s fingers. “You want another?”

“No, I’m good. Thank you.” Raylan politely refused, shaking his head. “I’m an old man, after all. Never thought I’d outlive Boyd Crowder, though, unless I was the one to kill him. If anyone could escape death, it was him and Wynn Duffy.”

“Who?” Zachariah blinked in confusion.

Raylan snorted, “Just another old criminal everyone was shocked could actually die. It was cancer, too, but of the skin variety. He liked to tan. They found him lying on some beach under the Caribbean sun, brown and wrinkled like leather. They thought he was just asleep.”

“Oh.” Zachariah accepted. “Should’ve used the spray tan, I guess.”

“You know, I never asked you what you did for a living.” Raylan realized.

“Are you hoping I became the English equivalent of a marshal?” Zachariah suspected, “Or some kind of law enforcement to get back at my dad.”

“It’s what I did.” Raylan shrugged.

“I’m a prosecutor.” Zachariah grinned. “Crown Prosecution Service.”

Raylan smiled proudly. “That’s my boy.”

The two chuckled.

“You must be wondering why I wanted to meet with you, Mr. Givens.” Zachariah said seriously , when he had stopped laughing.

“Call me Raylan.” Raylan allowed, “And yes, you’re right. I almost didn’t come, I was scared I might have a heart attack and die in Harlan, but I was just too curious not to make the trip. Why did you want to meet with me, Zachariah?”

Zachariah reached into the pocket of his leatherjacket. With one hand he pulled out two small cloth bags.

He set it on the wooden table. Raylan squinted his old brown eyes at it.

“Are those what I think they are?” he asked Zachariah.

Zachariah nodded, “We all carry our parents with us but it’s usually more in spirit than in ash.”

Raylan leaned back against the chair he sat in with a thud, exhaling.

He had seen many dead bodies, been to many funerals, but it was just plain unsettling staring at the ashes of two humans he had known living and breathing, walking and talking. Strange.

“My god…” he said.  “…did Boyd ask you to do this?”

“No.” Zachariah responded, “But he did say he wished he could see you one last time. I think he would’ve preferred a bullet from your gun than his own.”

Raylan tensed eyes widening. “You said he had Black Lung…”

“He did.” Zachariah said, “It’s not what he died of, though. I told you have gave up after my mom passed.”

Raylan opened his mouth to speak but could think of no words to say. He had never had the gift Boyd had with oration and he had never thought Boyd would do something like that. Kill himself.

“No.” Raylan disbelieved, shaking his head.

“He was gonna die anyway.” Zachariah explained, with a sigh, voice shaking just a little bit, almost unnoticeably, “He knew that. He was hopeless without my mother and she wasn’t there to take care of him anymore, either. He would have withered away in a hospitalbed. He wanted more dignity than that.”

“…I’m sorry.” Raylan said for the third time that afternoon.

“Thank you.” Zachariah finally accepted. And for the first time that afternoon he looked sad.

* * *

 

They parked their rental cars at the bottom of the hill and trekked up the path on foot. Raylan’s legs were tired and his lungs out of breath, but he wanted to walk anyway. The dead brown leaves crunched beneath their shoes.

This was Raylan’s first time back in Harlan after forty years. It was Zachariah’s first time back in Harlan since his mother’s womb.

When the wind blew, the leaves rattled and fell from the tall trees surrounding them in the brown forest. Red, orange and yellow descended around them as the ascended with small mountain.

“You have any particular place in mind?” Raylan asked, even though Zachariah did not know the land in Harlan. 

He stopped, leaning forward on the hillside, resting his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths.

The country house that had once belonged to Ava, where she had lived with both Crowder brothers at different times, had been sold. A wealthy family had renovated it, put an addition on it and lived there now. So, scattering the ashes on that property was not possible.  

Somewhere, high up in a tree, a bird crowed. Raylan almost thought it was the hillpeople, but he knew these were not their parts.

Zachariah stopped too. He turned around to face Raylan from a little further up the hill.

“I was just thinking we get to the top and just throw them up, let the wind take them.” He suggested, shaggy brown hair blowing in the breeze.

“Okay.” Raylan accepted. He started walking again.

Zachariah waited until Raylan was beside him to continue up the mountainside.

When they reached the peak they looked out over the valleys and other hills of Harlan County. Winding roads and rivers cut through the forests and countryside. There were neighborhoods and farms tucked into different pockets.

The sun was just beginning to set now. The orange halfcircle ducking behind a mountain, mimicking its curved shape. The rest of the sky fading to pink and purple.

To Raylan, it looked familiar, even after so many years. Comforting, in an odd way, but not mesmerizing. Nothing to write home about because it was the home he would write home to.

Zachariah gazed in awe. He had never seen this view before.

“Wow…” He said.

“Mmhm.” Raylan nodded.

Zachariah reached into his pocket and pulled out the cloth bags. He handed one to Raylan. Neither of them knew if it was Boyd or Ava.

“I don’t feel right doing this.” Raylan admitted, not looking at Zachariah, “Your mother and I were only close for a few short weeks. And Boyd…well, we dug coal together for one summer, but after that we were never on the same side again.”

“I know.” Zachariah accepted, still staring at the Harlan County sunset, “But it’s what they would’ve wanted.”

Raylan nodded. He and Zachariah waited until the wind blew again, rustling the leaves and stealing some for itself.

Then, they opened the cloth bags and let the ashes fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end of the story. Hope you liked it! Please tell me if you did :)

**Author's Note:**

> There it is. I hope you liked it. Leave kudos and comments if you did, and if you want more. 
> 
> :)


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